ROME — Italian media have returned to the practice of daily reporting on coronavirus cases in what many fear may be a lead-up to renewed mask mandates and obligatory vaccinations.
The Italian daily La Repubblica reported Sunday that Italy had 13,197 new cases of coronavirus and 30 deaths in the previous 24 hours, with the number of patients in intensive care “growing.”
State-run RAI News similarly reported that over 100,000 coronavirus tests are administered daily in Italy and totaled 111,946 in the past 24-hour period. Countrywide, there are a total of 190 coronavirus patients hospitalized in intensive care units.
Neither news outlet noted that Italy has an average year-round death rate of some 1,900 people per day from various causes, against which a figure of 30 deaths receives its proper contextualization. For example, Italy averages 266 daily deaths from heart disease alone, for a total of nearly 100,000 deaths per year.
As average temperatures have dropped significantly with the end of summer, the coronavirus seems to be following the pattern of the last two years with a relative resurgence after a period of dormancy.
La Repubblica noted that since the beginning of the pandemic, 21,938,269 people have had the coronavirus in Italy out of a population of 60 million, meaning that one in every three persons has tested positive for the disease.
Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza, who has become something of a celebrity thanks to the coronavirus, announced plans this weekend for a new vaccination campaign while insisting that the disease has not gone away.
“The fight against COVID continues unabated,” Speranza told journalists at the presentation of the new Meyer Health Campus in Florence. “COVID has not vanished, it has not taken a spaceship and disappeared. It is a problem that we still have but we have new tools to deal with it, especially with vaccines.”
Speranza said he hoped for the launch of a new vaccination campaign in mid-September, adding that continued mandatory mask-wearing on public transportation is still an open question.
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