COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
DiseaseCOVID-19
Virus strainSARS-CoV-2
LocationItaly
First outbreakWuhan, Hubei, China
Index caseRome
Arrival date31 January 2020
(4 years, 8 months, 1 week and 1 day)[1]
Confirmed cases26,826,486[2]
Active cases141,988[3]
Hospitalized cases2,831[3] (active)
Critical cases104[3] (active)
Recovered25,320,467[3] (total, incl. discharged)
Deaths
197,542[2]
Fatality rate0.74%
Vaccinations
  • 50,936,720[2] (total vaccinated)
  • 49,484,584[2] (fully vaccinated)
  • 150,321,540[2] (doses administered)
Government website
salute.gov.it/nuovocoronavirus

The COVID-19 pandemic in Italy is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Italy on 31 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists in Rome tested positive for the virus.[1] One week later an Italian man repatriated to Italy from the city of Wuhan, China, was hospitalized and confirmed as the third case in Italy.[4] Clusters of cases were later detected in Lombardy and Veneto on 21 February,[5] with the first deaths on 22 February.[6] By the beginning of March, there had been confirmed cases in all regions of Italy.[7][8][9][10]

On 31 January, the Italian government suspended all flights to and from China and declared a state of emergency. In February, eleven municipalities in northern Italy were identified as the centres of the two main Italian clusters and placed under quarantine. The majority of positive cases in other regions traced back to these two clusters.[11] On 8 March 2020, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte expanded the quarantine to all of Lombardy and 14 other northern provinces, and on the following day to all of Italy, placing more than 60 million people in lockdown.[12][13][14] On 11 March 2020, Conte prohibited nearly all commercial activity except for supermarkets and pharmacies.[15][16] On 21 March, the Italian government closed all non-essential businesses and industries, and restricted movement of people.[17] In May, many restrictions were gradually eased,[18] and on 3 June, freedom of movement across regions and other European countries was restored.[19] In October, Italy was hit by the second wave of the pandemic, which brought the government to introduce further restrictions on movement and social life, which were gradually eased in mid-2021.[20]

By 18 January, Italy had tested about 48 million people.[21] Due to the limited number of tests performed, the real number of infected people in Italy, as in other countries, is estimated to be higher than the official count.[22][23][24][25] In May 2020, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) estimated 11,000 more deaths for COVID-19 in Italy than the confirmed ones.[26][27] This estimation was later confirmed in October 2020 by a second Istat report.[28][29] In March 2021, Istat published a new report in which it detected an excess mortality of 100,526 deaths in 2020, compared to the average of the previous five years.[30] Moreover, 2020 became the year with the highest number of deaths since 1945, when Italy was fighting in World War II on its soil.[31]

During the peak of the pandemic, Italy's number of active cases was one of the highest in the world.[32] As of 17 March 2023, Italy has 141,988 active cases.[32] Overall, there have been 26,826,486 confirmed cases and 197,542 deaths (a rate of 3,313.401 deaths per million population),[33] while there have been 25,320,467 recoveries or dismissals.[3]

As of 4 February 2023, a total of 150,178,254 vaccine doses have been administered.[34]

  1. ^ a b "Coronavirus: Primi due casi in Italia". Corriere della sera (in Italian). 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e Mathieu, Edouard; Ritchie, Hannah; Rodés-Guirao, Lucas; Appel, Cameron; Giattino, Charlie; Hasell, Joe; Macdonald, Bobbie; Dattani, Saloni; Beltekian, Diana; Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban; Roser, Max (2020–2024). "Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)". Our World in Data. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Italy COVID: 4,559,970 Cases and 129,410 Deaths - Worldometer". www.worldometers.info. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
  4. ^ "First Italian dies of coronavirus as outbreak flares in north". Reuters. 21 February 2020. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
  5. ^ Anzolin, Elisa; Amante, Angelo (21 February 2020). "Coronavirus outbreak grows in northern Italy, 16 cases reported in one day". Thomson Reuters. Archived from the original on 21 February 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  6. ^ "Coronavirus: primi casi a Milano. Cosa sappiamo dei nuovi contagi in Lombardia, Veneto e Piemonte" [Coronavirus: first case in Milan. What we know about new infections in Lombardy, Veneto and Piemont]. Corriere della Sera (in Italian). 22 February 2020. Archived from the original on 22 February 2020. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  7. ^ "Coronavirus. Colpite tutte le regioni. La Protezione civile: ecco i numeri aggiornati". Avvenire (in Italian). 5 March 2020. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  8. ^ Raccomandazioni di etica clinica per l'ammissione a trattamenti intensivi e per la loro sospensione, in condizioni eccezionali di squilibrio tra necessità e risorse disponibili (PDF) (Technical report) (in Italian). Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (SIAARTI). 6 March 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 March 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  9. ^ Mounk, Yascha (11 March 2020). "The Extraordinary Decisions Facing Italian Doctors". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 12 March 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020. Now the Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (SIAARTI) has published guidelines for the criteria that doctors and nurses should follow in these extraordinary circumstances. The document begins by likening the moral choices facing Italian doctors to the forms of wartime triage that are required in the field of "catastrophe medicine."
  10. ^ Privitera, Greta (11 March 2020). "Italian doctors on coronavirus frontline face tough calls on whom to save". Politico. Archived from the original on 12 March 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020. …the Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care, who co-authored new guidelines on how to prioritize treatment of coronavirus cases in hospitals…
  11. ^ "Coronavirus in Italia: aggiornamento ora per ora". la Repubblica (in Italian). 22 February 2020. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  12. ^ "Coronavirus: Northern Italy quarantines 16 million people". BBC. 8 March 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  13. ^ "All of Italy to be placed on coronavirus lockdown". BBC News. 9 March 2020. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  14. ^ "Coronavirus: Italy deaths jump to 463, with 300 in just one region". Sky News. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
  15. ^ Harlan, Chico; Morris, Loveday. "Italy ramps up coronavirus lockdown, Merkel warns virus could infect two-thirds of Germany". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  16. ^ Sylvers, Eric; Legorano, Giovanni (12 March 2020). "Italy Hardens Nationwide Quarantine". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  17. ^ Safi, Michael; Giuffrida, Angela; Farrer, Martin (22 March 2020). "Coronavirus: Italy bans any movement inside country as toll nears 5,500". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  18. ^ "Coronavirus: Italy takes 'calculated risk' in easing restrictions – PM". BBC News. 16 May 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  19. ^ Fraser, Alex (3 June 2020). "Italians on the move again as lockdown restrictions ease". Reuters. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  20. ^ "Coronavirus, dai locali alle palestre: tutte le misure nel nuovo Dpcm di ottobre". Sky Tg 24. 25 October 2020.
  21. ^ "Aggiornamento 27/04/2020 Ore 17.00" (PDF). 27 April 2020. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  22. ^ Flaxman, Seth; Swapnil, Mishra; Gandy, Axel; et al. (30 March 2020). Report 13: Estimating the number of infections and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries (Report). Imperial College London. pp. 1–35. doi:10.25561/77731. Archived from the original on 31 March 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  23. ^ Lau, Hien; Khosrawipour, Veria; Kocbach, Piotr; Mikolajczyk, Agata; Ichii, Hirohito; Schubert, Justyna; Bania, Jacek; Khosrawipour, Tanja (14 March 2020). "Internationally lost COVID-19 cases". Journal of Microbiology, Immunology and Infection. 53 (3): 454–458. doi:10.1016/j.jmii.2020.03.013. ISSN 1684-1182. PMC 7102572. PMID 32205091.
  24. ^ "The total number of Italian coronavirus cases could be '10 times higher' than known tally, according to one official". CNBC. 24 March 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  25. ^ Gli italiani colpiti dal Covid sono 1,5 milioni, metà in Lombardia: letalità scende al 2,5%. A Bergamo uno su 4 ha gli anticorpi, Il Sole 24 Ore
  26. ^ Impatto dell'epidemia COVID-19 sulla mortalità totale della popolazione residente, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica
  27. ^ Per l'Istat ci sono 11 mila morti in più collegabili al Covid-19, AGI – Agenzia Italiana
  28. ^ Decessi e cause di morte: costa produce l'Istat, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica
  29. ^ "Istat ha rilasciato i nuovi dati sulla mortalità. Ci sono tutti i 7.903 comuni italiani fino al 31 agosto. Si vede chiaramente l'impatto del coronavirus su marzo e aprile. Da marzo ad agosto nel 2020 sono morte 47.000 persone in più della media del 2015–19.", Lorenzo Ruffino – Twitter
  30. ^ "Nuovi dati Istat sulla mortalità. Nel 2020 si sono registrati 100.526 decessi in più rispetto alla media 2015–2019, una crescita del 15,6%. Isolando marzo-dicembre l'eccesso è di 108.178 decessi (+21%). I decessi Covid-19 fino al 31/12 sono stati 75.891.", Lorenzo Ruffino – Twitter
  31. ^ "Istat, in Italia più di 700mila morti nel 2020: è il numero più alto dal Dopoguerra". Sky Tg 24. 5 March 2021.
  32. ^ a b "Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins". Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  33. ^ Mathieu, Edouard; Ritchie, Hannah; Rodés-Guirao, Lucas; Appel, Cameron; Giattino, Charlie; Hasell, Joe; Macdonald, Bobbie; Dattani, Saloni; Beltekian, Diana; Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban; Roser, Max (2020–2024). "Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)". Our World in Data. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
  34. ^ "Italy: WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard With Vaccination Data". covid19.who.int. Retrieved 27 February 2023.