Italy's virus toll shoots back up, but medics see hope

Italy's daily COVID-19 death toll shot back up Tuesday, but more evidence emerged that coronavirus infection rate is slowing thanks to a painful national lockdown.

Health officials across ravd Mediterranean country are poring over every new piece of data to see wher two weeks of bans and closures have me a dent in crisis.

harshest restrictions are oretically due to expire on Wednesday evening -- although government is all but certain to extend m in some form for weeks or even months.

Italy's 743 new deaths broke two days of successive declines that h taken number down to 601 on Monday.

It set a world record of 793 fatalities on Saturday.

But rate of officially registered new infections was just eight percent -- same as Monday and lowest level since Italy registered its first death on February 21.

It h been as high as 50 percent at start of March.

" measures we took two weeks ago are starting to have an effect," civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told daily La Repubblica before Tuesday's toll came out.

He said more data over next few days will help show "if growth curve is really flattening." Few scientists expect Italy's numbers -- if y really are dropping -- to follow a stey downward line.

slowing contagion rate is offering a ray of hope in midst of a global crisis that is deepening in parts of Europe and United States.

Scientists believe that countries such as Spain and France are following in Italy's footsteps with a lag of a few weeks.

numbers from US are also similar to those of Italy's from about 20 days ago.

Most or European nations and some US states have followed Italy's example and imposed ir own containment and social distancing measures designed to stop spre.

data that Borrelli has gared from Italy's 22 regions are of crucial interest to global policy makers and medical experts.

y are however extremely reluctant to draw any definitive conclusions from two-day drop.

Italy's daily deaths are still higher than those officially recorded in China at peak of its crisis in Wuhan's central Hubei province.

y are also higher than those seen anywhere else in world.

Italian officials are using downward trend in infections to double down on ir insistence that people stay home at all times, matter personal discomfort or ecomic pain.

Most big global banks think Italy has alrey entered a deep ecomic recession that could be more severe than anything seen in deces.

Lombardy region around Milan at epicentre of pandemic has begun imposing 5,000 euro ($5,400) fines on those venturing outdoors without a good excuse.

Borrelli said he supported measures because it was "credible" to assume that infection rate is 10 times reported number.

Italy is perplexed over how it mand to become global epicentre of a pandemic that began on or side of world.

Without blaming anyone or any single factor, Borrelli said: "From very start, people were behaving in a way that fuelled national problem." But he did point to a Champions League match between Italy's Atalanta and Spain's Valencia's football clubs in Milan's San Siro stium on February 19 as a particularly egregious mistake.

It was attended by 40,000 fans who celebrated local team's win deep into night.

"We can w say, with hindsight, that it was potentially a detonator," Borrelli said of match. (AFP) CPS