The death toll from coronavirus in Italy has climbed to 3,405, overtaking the number of fatalities in China, where the disease originated.
On Thursday, the Italian Civil Protection Agency announced the country had confirmed 5,322 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the total number of infections to 41,035. 4,440 patients have recovered.
Italy’s Covid-19 death tally is nearly 200 more than the number of fatalities in China, which currently stands at 3,242, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Infections in China stand at 80,967 while 71,150 have recovered.
Lombardy, a region in northern Italy, is the most-affected area with experts saying that preventive measures put in place are “not strict enough.”
“The situation in Lombardy right now is similar to what we experienced two months ago in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of COVID-19,” the Chinese Red Cross vice president, Sun Shuopeng said in Milan, Italy on Thursday.
He added: “In the city of Wuhan after one month since the adoption of the lockdown policy, we see a decreasing trend from the peak of the disease. Here in Milan, the hardest-hit area by COVID-19, there isn’t a very strict lockdown: public transportation is still working and people are still moving around, you’re still having dinners and parties in the hotels and you’re not wearing masks. We need every citizen to be involved in the fight of COVID-19 and follow this policy.”
The illness has so far spread to 192 countries and territories with the number of infections globally standing at 253,085 and 10,406 deaths.
