Last updated: Tuesday 13th April 2021 at 18:14 CET
Key: Purple shows an improvement and orange a deterioration Number of new coronavirus cases in Italy today: 13,447 - increase of 5,702 from equivalent day last week (Tuesday 6th April - 7,745) Number of people currently infected in Italy: 519,220 (decrease of 5,197 compared to previous day) Weekly Comparison Total number of new cases in the last 7 days (7th - 13th April): 106,442 Total number of new cases in previous 7 day period (31st March - 6th April): 125,716 Weekly difference: decrease of 19,274 (-15%) Testing Number of tests carried out for today's figures: 304,990 Previous day number of tests: 190,635 Positivity rate: 4.4% Yesterday's positivity rate: 5.1% R number (rate of transmission) Latest R number as of Friday 9th April: 0.92 Previous R number: 0.98 Vaccinations Vaccinations carried out in last 24 hours: 251,687 Vaccinations carried out in previous 24 hour period: 205,250 First dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 186,095 First dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 160,932 Second dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 65,592 Second dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 44,318 Total number of vaccinations carried out: 13,377,145 Total number of people vaccinated with first and second doses: 4,018,236 Deaths Deaths in last 24 hours: 476 Deaths on equivalent day last week: 421 (Tuesday 6th April) Good morning all on Tuesday 13th April. The fight against Covid continues to gather pace as we edge ever closer to a return to our previous lives.
Yesterday in Italy there were 9,789 new cases of Coronavirus, another decrease from the same day of the previous week. As last week was Easter, those numbers are slightly muddled and we should get a clearer picture of the current situation when the latest figures are revealed this evening. Vaccination numbers are still considerably lower than the promised 500,000 per day; yesterday for example there were just over 200,000 jabs carried out but help is on the way. One of the leading figures in Italy's vaccine roll out Francesco Paolo Figliuolo has stated that 45 million doses will be supplied over the course of the three months of April, May and June. That works out at 15 million per month and will equate to roughly half a million per day. Elsewhere, the first Covid free trains will run on Friday between Milan and Rome. Anyone boarding the train must produce a negative test result taken within the 48 hours before the journey with free tests also available at the train stations. Over to the weather and it's a sunnier day across the country, albeit with those lower temperatures persisting. Catania in Sicily however is bucking that chilly trend today with an agreeable 21° Celsius. Today's photos come from the northern city of Brescia in the Lombardy region. A city that's typically renowned more for its commercial and economic success, it does however boast a surprising number of sights. Looming large on a hill overlooking the city is the imposing Brescia Castle and from this position you get a bird's eye view of the city layout. Its most famous sight is the Museo di Santa Giulia which forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Longobards in Italy: Places of the Power: 568 - 774 AD). Just a short walk from there are a series of squares which recognise the different periods of history that unfolded in the city. There's a fascinating contrast between the medieval, Renaissance and Fascist periods with each era well-represented. These contrasts can be strongly felt at Piazza della Loggia, Piazza della Vittoria and Piazza Paolo VI which is home to Brescia's two cathedrals. With its history stretching back to its foundation in 1,200 BC, it's no surprise that there's such a legacy of sights which also includes a Roman Theatre. However, it's not just the sights within the city that make it so eye-catching, it's what's close by. Thirty kilometres east of Brescia is the town of Desenzano del Garda, one of the major lakeside locations on Lake Garda along with nearby Sirmione and Salò. If the presence of one of Europe's most beautiful lakes on its doorstep isn't quite enough, then how about another one even closer in the opposite direction? It's a short run of 25 kilometres from Brescia to Lake Iseo with a number of delightful towns edging the lake and the pretty Monte Isola in the middle of it. Not only this, but to get there you have to pass through the bucolic Franciacorta wine region with its vineyard landscapes of rolling hills. Back with another blog tomorrow. Buona giornata. Last updated: Monday 12th April 2021 at 18:19 CET
Key: Purple shows an improvement and orange a deterioration Number of new coronavirus cases in Italy today: 9,789 - decrease of 887 from equivalent day last week (Monday 5th April - 10,676) Number of people currently infected in Italy: 524,417 (decrease of 8,588 compared to previous day) Weekly Comparison Total number of new cases in the last 7 days (6th - 12th April): 100,740 Total number of new cases in previous 7 day period (30th March - 5th April): 133,949 Weekly difference: decrease of 33,209 (-25%) Testing Number of tests carried out for today's figures: 190,635 Previous day number of tests: 253,100 Positivity rate: 5.1% Yesterday's positivity rate: 6.2% R number (rate of transmission) Latest R number as of Friday 9th April: 0.92 Previous R number: 0.98 Vaccinations Vaccinations carried out in last 24 hours: 205,250 Vaccinations carried out in previous 24 hour period: 267,361 First dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 160,932 First dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 212,739 Second dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 44,318 Second dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 54,622 Total number of vaccinations carried out: 13,125,458 Total number of people vaccinated with first and second doses: 3,952,644 Deaths Deaths in last 24 hours: 358 Deaths on equivalent day last week: 296 (Monday 5th April) Good morning all on Monday 12th April. It's a big day in the UK with shops reopening after the lockdown and things are looking a touch better in Italy as well.
Yesterday Italy reported 15,746 new cases of Covid-19, a reduction of just over two thousand from the previous Sunday. The figures look even better when you compare the last seven days with the previous seven: between 29th March and 4th April there were a total of 136,223 new cases whereas in the period between 5th and 11th April (inclusive) there were 101,627. That's a 25% reduction and a good step in the right direction. Italy's traffic light system of restrictions has provided some further encouragement today with a number of alterations, most of which are for the better. Calabria, Emilia Romagna, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany all move out of the red zone and into the slightly calmer waters of orange. In essence, in the orange zone shops can open and you don't need a reason to leave your house; the red zone being the opposite of that. The one negative here is that Sardinia has made the reverse transition from orange to red. The vaccination rollout continues and whilst there have been a few days where the number of jabs has risen significantly, the average amount is still somewhere around 250,000 per day. This hasn't been helped by a remarkable level of vaccination refusal in Sicily; or more specifically, refusal of the AstraZeneca vaccine reaching around 80% on the southern island region. One would hope that those jabs don't end up being wasted and are used on the millions of people that are crying out for them. There's a fair bit of rain around the country today and for the most part, the low temperatures continue with the brightest spark being Naples at 17° Celsius. The rest of the week should provide more sunshine but it doesn't look like it will warm up significantly until next week. Today's photos come from La Maddalena Archipelago in Sardinia. This beautiful group of islands is situated at the north-eastern tip of the island region and just a short hop across the water from the French-owned Corsica. Highlights of the archipelago include the main La Maddalena Island, where you'll find the majority of shops, restaurants and accommodation options, and the smaller island of Spargi with its Cala Corsara Beach, one of the best beaches in Italy. Italian Risorgimento hero Giuseppe Garibaldi called this area home after his unification exploits of the 19th century, seeing out his days on little Caprera which is connected to La Maddalena Island by a road bridge. The island group can be reached from the port of Palau on the Sardinian mainland. I'll be back with another blog tomorrow and until then I'll wish you all a very happy Monday. Last updated: Sunday 11th April 2021 at 19:07 CET
Key: Purple shows an improvement and orange a deterioration Number of new coronavirus cases in Italy today: 15,746 - decrease of 2,279 from equivalent day last week (Sunday 4th April - 18,025) Number of people currently infected in Italy: 533,005 (decrease of 80 compared to previous day) Weekly Comparison Total number of new cases in the last 7 days (5th - 11th April): 101,627 Total number of new cases in previous 7 day period (29th March - 4th April): 136,223 Weekly difference: decrease of 34,596 (-25%) Testing Number of tests carried out for today's figures: 253,100 Previous day number of tests: 320,892 Positivity rate: 6.2% Yesterday's positivity rate: 5.5% R number (rate of transmission) Latest R number as of Friday 9th April: 0.92 Previous R number: 0.98 Vaccinations Vaccinations carried out in last 24 hours: 267,361 Vaccinations carried out in previous 24 hour period: 364,039 First dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 212,739 First dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 271,550 Second dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 54,622 Second dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 92,489 Total number of vaccinations carried out: 12,920,208 Total number of people vaccinated with first and second doses: 3,908,326 Deaths Deaths in last 24 hours: 331 Deaths on equivalent day last week: 326 (Sunday 4th April) Last updated: Saturday 10th April 2021 at 17:41 CET
Key: Purple shows an improvement and orange a deterioration Number of new coronavirus cases in Italy today: 17,567 - decrease of 3,686 from equivalent day last week (Saturday 3rd April - 21,253) Number of people currently infected in Italy: 533,085 (decrease of 3,276 compared to previous day) Weekly Comparison Total number of new cases in the last 7 days (4th - 10th April): 103,906 Total number of new cases in previous 7 day period (28th March - 3rd April): 139,274 Weekly difference: decrease of 35,368 (-25%) Testing Number of tests carried out for today's figures: 320,892 Previous day number of tests: 362,973 Positivity rate: 5.5% Yesterday's positivity rate: 5.2% R number (rate of transmission) Latest R number as of Friday 9th April: 0.92 Previous R number: 0.98 Vaccinations Vaccinations carried out in last 24 hours: 364,039 Vaccinations carried out in previous 24 hour period: 438,253 First dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 271,550 First dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 282,394 Second dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 92,489 Second dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 107,549 Total number of vaccinations carried out: 12,652,847 Total number of people vaccinated with first and second doses: 3,853,704 Deaths Deaths in last 24 hours: 344 Deaths on equivalent day last week: 376 (Saturday 3rd April) Last updated: Friday 9th April 2021 at 18:15 CET
Key: Purple shows an improvement and orange a deterioration Number of new coronavirus cases in Italy today: 18,938 - decrease of 2,980 from equivalent day last week (2nd April - 21,918) Number of people currently infected in Italy: 536,361 (decrease of 7,969 compared to previous day) Weekly Comparison Total number of new cases in the last 7 days (3rd - 9th April): 107,592 Total number of new cases in previous 7 day period (27th March - 2nd April): 141,845 Weekly difference: decrease of 34,253 (-24%) Testing Number of tests carried out for today's figures: 362,973 Previous day number of tests: 362,162 Positivity rate: 5.2% Yesterday's positivity rate: 4.75% R number (rate of transmission) Latest R number as of Friday 9th April: 0.92 Previous R number: 0.98 Vaccinations Vaccinations carried out in last 24 hours: 438,253 Vaccinations carried out in previous 24 hour period: 216,302 First dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 282,394 First dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 155,859 Second dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 107,549 Second dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 60,443 Total number of vaccinations carried out: 12,288,808 Total number of people vaccinated with first and second doses: 3,761,215 Deaths Deaths in last 24 hours: 718 Deaths in previous 24 hours: 487 Good morning everyone on Friday 9th April, on a day when there's more news than you can shake a stick at! Hogging the headlines today are the likely news sources of the Coronavirus, Italian PM Mario Draghi and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. Vying for headline position alongside those usual suspects are the rather unusual suspects of some jellyfish and a humble sofa.
Let's have a look at the pandemic first and yesterday in Italy there were 17,221 new cases of Covid-19 reported. This again is a substantial decrease on the equivalent weekday from the previous week and brings further hope that things might be improving faster than we previously thought. Again it's a case of cautious optimism as we don't know how much of these lower numbers can be attributed to any potential lag from Easter although that now looks like a less likely reason. The week on week difference is hugely encouraging, a 23% drop in new cases from the previous seven days, a difference of more than 33,000. The feelings of renewed optimism are strengthened by today's latest R number which is now officially 0.92, down from 0.98, which means the virus is gradually shrinking. There's some big news from the UK this morning where Transport Secretary Grant Shapps gave some further details on the proposed traffic light scheme that could enable foreign travel as early as May 17th, but crucially said "this is the first time I'm able to come on and say I'm not against booking summer holidays". This is a hugely significant development for the travel sector and we all hope it will provide some stimulus to everyone upon whom the industry depends. Of course there is still a long way to go and a lot that can happen; a lot needs to happen as well and at this stage we don't know which countries will be on the lovely green list. That won't be produced for another three weeks or so and if Italy's declining Covid-19 figures can continue their fall, we may just find ourselves back in business and looking forward to a wonderful summer. One of the key points of the plan surrounds the necessity for travellers to have to pay for their own Covid tests. Those costs look quite prohibitive at the moment but hopefully the continued debate will result in some reductions to make it affordable for everyone. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and the aforementioned Ursula von der Leyen find themselves intertwined with the twin debutants on this blog: Turkish President Recep Erdogan and erm, a sofa. If you haven't seen the incident that sparked the controversy that threw these unlikely characters together, make sure you do so behind your palms as it's off the scale cringeworthy. The Turkish President unashamedly snubbing Von der Leyen by refusing her a chair and making her sit on a sofa, stage left. This has prompted Italian PM Draghi to label Erdogan a "dictator" and of course he's not happy about it. Yes I did mention jellyfish at the top of the page and I'm sure you're asking yourself why. Well, I have this morning learned that the collective term for jellyfish is a "smack", which is almost as good as a murder of crows, and I learned this because a smack of jellyfish has somehow found its way into the harbour area of Trieste. Environmental groups have described this event as an "unusual gathering", a little like "sofagate" described above you might say. At this juncture I must report the sad news that the UK's Prince Philip has died at the age of 99. The breaking news has just been announced by Buckingham Palace. The Duke of Edinburgh, husband to the queen since 1947, died peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Back in Italy, the weather today continues its recent trend of plenty of sunshine tempered by lower than average temperatures. I feel like I've been reporting these same temperatures since the beginning of February with Cagliari the warmest at 16° Celsius and Turin joining Bergamo at the other end of the scale with a maximum of just 9° C. I'm going to wrap up for the day and for the week by highlighting a new feature that I hope to be able to develop further in the coming weeks. I'm going to add into the Friday blog a little element called "Friday's Top Ten" (see what I did there?), I know, genius isn't it. This morning I put together my first Top Ten of Italy and the chosen subject was Top Ten Cities of Italy. I'm expecting/hoping it will ruffle a few feathers, so let me know what you think of my list and try not to swear please. I'll leave you with a few photos of Italian cities but did they all make the list? If not, which ones did? And of those that did, which one came out on top? And in which order? The suspense is killing you I'm sure... Have a great weekend! Last updated: Thursday 8th April 2021 at 17:59 CET
Key: Purple shows an improvement and orange a deterioration Number of new coronavirus cases in Italy today: 17,221 - decrease of 6,413 from equivalent day last week (1st April - 23,634) Number of people currently infected in Italy: 544,330 (decrease of 3,507 compared to previous day) Weekly Comparison Total number of new cases in the last 7 days (2nd - 8th April): 110,572 Total number of new cases in previous 7 day period (26th March - 1st April): 143,895 Weekly difference: decrease of 33,323 (-23%) Testing Number of tests carried out for today's figures: 362,162 Previous day number of tests: 339,939 Positivity rate: 4.75% Yesterday's positivity rate: 4% R number (rate of transmission) Latest R number as of Friday 2nd April: 0.98 Previous R number: 1.08 Vaccinations Vaccinations carried out in last 24 hours: 216,302 Vaccinations carried out in previous 24 hour period: 290,073 First dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 155,859 First dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 206,688 Second dose vaccinations in last 24 hours: 60,443 Second dose vaccinations in previous 24 hour period: 83,385 Total number of vaccinations carried out: 11,850,555 Total number of people vaccinated with first and second doses: 3,653,666 Deaths Deaths in last 24 hours: 487 Deaths in previous 24 hours: 627 Good afternoon everyone on Thursday 8th April. On the day after the AstraZeneca vaccine took another public beating and Italians took to the streets complaining about the lockdown, there are nevertheless some new reasons to be cheerful.
Yesterday in Italy there were 13,708 new cases of Covid-19. This is a huge decrease from the previous Wednesday when there were in excess of 22,000. The figure was even more surprising as it came on a day when there were a larger number of tests carried out. It's true that the numbers have been coming down steadily for a few weeks now but never by this much and I would expect there to be some kind of statistical balancing of the books in the coming days. So we await the next report with cautious optimism but this does look like the first piece of good news. The second item providing some cheer is the announcement from the Italian Tourism Minister Massimo Garavaglia today that Italy could be open to tourism by June 2nd. This is a significant date as it's a national holiday: the Festa della Repubblica. Let's not forget, it was just a few days ago that entry restrictions for UK citizens arriving in Italy were eased with a shortened period of quarantine required. Of course, UK citizens are not allowed to leave the country for a holiday at the moment but these are a few more baby steps along the path to freedom. For tourism to be viable in early June would require freedom of movement between the Italian regions which we don't currently have, an end to the overnight curfew and the removal of the quarantine requirements. For most people it would also require removal of the necessity to quarantine on returning home. The UK government will be announcing its plans for foreign travel soon, including a proposed traffic light system with countries categorised under different colour-coded bands, depending on the severity of the pandemic in each individual case. The earliest date set by the UK authorities is May 17th and that's dependent on a number of parameters being met first. So there really is much to be done and much that needs to happen in a positive sense before we can start to plan holidays in Italy for this summer, but there are some growing signs of encouragement it has to be said. Further encouragement comes from the Italian authorities reiterating the pledge to carry out 500,000 jabs of the vaccine per day. It was previously stated that this would happen "soon", but we now have a date on when it will happen by which is the end of April. The number of vaccines carried out yesterday incidentally was 290,073, a nice increase from the day before. I hesitate to mention the weather as it's a mildly disappointing subject at the moment. On the positive side, it's sunny everywhere today, it's just that the temperatures are a bit on the low side. The greatest warmth can be found on the island regions of Sicily and Sardinia today with a maximum of 15° Celsius. Still, at least we can get these low temperatures out of the way while it's not possible to holiday here anyway. For today's photos I've chosen the small town of Trevignano Romano in the Lazio region. It features close to the top of my list of Lakeside Towns of Italy and it's a place that I've been very lucky to be able to call home in the past. It's situated on the banks of Lake Bracciano, about an hour's drive from the centre of Rome. It's a very pretty and hugely popular town with its lakeside promenade and incredible number of restaurants considering its size. It's known for its culinary expertise and this makes it one of the favourite weekend boltholes for Romans seeking fresh air, somewhere to swim and all that lovely food of course. Buona giornata |
AuthorMy name is Dion Protani, founder of Italy Review. The Italy Review blog is designed to provide ideas and inspiration to visit places in Italy you might not have heard about, as well those you have. Archives
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