Coronavirus: Italy registers 21,311 positives and worries about pressure in ICUs

Italy registered 21,261 infections of coronavirus and 376 deaths in the last twenty-four hours, the Ministry of Health reported today while they are concerned about the pressure in intensive care units that continue to exceed the risk threshold in several regions.

The 21,261 new cases were less than the 21,932 new infected and a greater number of tests were carried out than the previous day, 359,214 tests.

The death toll also drops slightly, going from 481 to 376, bringing the number of deaths from the coronavirus to 110,704 since February 2020.

Of the 564,855 current positives, 32,203 are admitted, 205 less sick than on Friday, but of them, 3,714 require intensive care, which is 10 more than the previous day, so the pressure on hospitals continues.

The president of the Higher Institute of Health, Silvio Brusaferro, explained that only a drop in pressure on intensive care units will make the regions wait to be able to get out of the toughest restrictions

Currently in Italy 40.9% of intensive care beds are occupied by coronavirus patients, well above the critical threshold set at 30 percent.

Although the situation changes a lot from north to south, since Lombardy still has the record for the occupancy of beds in the ICU (60.9%), followed by Piedmont (59.9%) and Marche (58.4%) , while it is much lower to the south as in the region of Basilicata (11%) or Sardinia (16.3%).

The doses of vaccine administered today exceeded 10.6 million and more than 3.36 million citizens have received the second dose.