SAHARANEWS – Soldiers were being drafted in to help enforce the lockdown in Italy on Friday as officials announced 627 new deaths, the largest single-day toll anywhere in the world since the coronavirus outbreak began.
Desperate scenes have unfolded in the north of the country, particularly the hard-hit Lombardy region where infections first exploded last month, as hospitals struggle to treat thousands of cases.
And Chinese medical experts helping Italy deal with the crisis have said the restrictions imposed in Lombardy are “not strict enough.”
The government has now agreed that the military can be used to help enforce the lockdown, the president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, told a news conference on Friday.
The government has now agreed that the military can be used to help enforce the lockdown, the president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, told a news conference on Friday.
More than 4,000 people have now died from the disease in Italy, the country’s civil protection agency said Friday — more than any other nation — and nearly 6,000 new infections were confirmed in the past day, bringing the total to more than 47,000 cases.
Daniela Confalonieri, an Italian nurse in Milan, the region’s capital, said the situation was so dire that the dead were no longer being counted.
“We’re working in a state of very high stress and tension,” Confalonieri told Reuters. “Unfortunately we can’t contain the situation in Lombardy, there’s a high level of contagion and we’re not even counting the dead any more.