Italy's active coronavirus infections drop under 20,000

Active coronavirus infections have dropped below 20,000 over the past 24 hours in Italy, the country's Civil Protection Department said Tuesday, reported Xinhua.

The active infections decreased to 19,573, down by 1,064 cases from Monday, according to the daily bulletin of the department.

A total of 184,585 patients have recovered, an increase of 1,159 compared to Monday. The overall death toll rose to 34,675 after 18 patients lost their lives in the past 24 hours.

Of those who tested positive for the new coronavirus, 1,853 are hospitalized with symptoms, down by 185 from Monday. The number of patients in intensive care units (ICUs) fell to 115, down by 12 from Monday.

The rest -- 17,605 people, or 90 percent of those who tested positive for the new coronavirus -- are isolated at home because they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.

The northern, densely populated and highly industrialized Lombardy region, where the pandemic officially first broke out in February, still led in terms of active cases and deaths among Italy's 20 regions with 12,903 active infections and 16,579 deaths.

The overall number of COVID-19 infections, fatalities and recoveries rose to 238,833 cases over the past 24 hours, against a total of 238,720 cases on Monday, the Civil Protection Department said.

OVER 49,000 WORKPLACE INFECTIONS

Also on Tuesday, the National Institute for Workplace Accident Insurance (INAIL, in its Italian acronym) said in a statement that 49,021 infections have occurred in the workplace as of June 15 -- up by 1,999 compared to its last report on May 31.

Among the hardest-hit employee categories were security guards, cleaners, call center workers, food, chemical, pharmaceutical factory workers, hotel and restaurant workers, and retail workers, INAIL said.

But the lion's share of cases -- 72.2 percent of infections and 26.3 percent of the fatalities -- occurred among workers in the health care and social services sectors, such as hospitals and nursing homes.

Indeed, a total of 169 doctors have lost their lives to the new coronavirus, according to a running tally by the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists (FNOMCeO).

That number was up from a total of 111 doctors who had died as of two months ago, according to FNOMCeO's tally on April 22. The first death on FNOMCeO's list occurred on March 11, one day after a national lockdown ordered by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte went into effect.

"DEADLY" NURSING HOMES IN SPOTLIGHT

According to Turin-based La Stampa newspaper, almost 9,000 nursing home residents died of COVID-19 between February and the end of April, accounting for 42.2 percent of the new coronavirus-related deaths that occurred in the period.

"This was not due to bad luck or advanced age, but because in too many cases, nothing was done to protect them," La Stampa reported on June 17. "Over three-fourths of the facilities had no protective equipment, and one in four failed to isolate infected residents."

One of the hardest-hit nursing homes is located in the town of Montecchio Emilia in the northern Emilia Romagna region, where prosecutors have ordered the exhumation and autopsy of the bodies of 18 elderly residents who died of COVID-19 between Feb. 1 and April 11, RAI News public broadcaster reported on Tuesday.

Five suspects, including three managers and a doctor, are reportedly under investigation for manslaughter after an elderly man was admitted to the facility "without anyone realizing he was infected," sparking a COVID-19 outbreak that claimed 18 lives, according to RAI.

The investigation is the latest in a long list of similar inquiries that are ongoing in Italy from north to south.

Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri has said that "since the start of the pandemic, we have checked over 600 facilities for the elderly (across Italy), finding serious irregularities in at least one in four of them."