Russia sends experts, medics

Rome, March 22: Italy on Saturday reported 793 new coronavirus deaths, a oneday record that saw the country’s toll shoot up to 4,825 — 38.3 percent of the world’s total.

The number of confirmed Covid-19 infections rose by 6,557 to 53,578. The total number of fatalities in the northern Lombardy regions around Milan surpassed 3,000.

Northern Italy has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak. It accounts for nearly twothirds of Italy’s fatalities.

Italy has reported 1,420 deaths since Friday, a grim figure that suggests the pandemic may be breaking through the government's various containment and social distancing measures.

The Mediterranean nation of 60 million has been under an effective lockdown since March 12, when public gatherings were banned and most stores shuttered.

In a bid to combat the outbreak, approximately three million masks were scheduled to arrive in Italy on Saturday.

Police were out in force across the streets of Rome on Saturday, checking documents and fining those outside without a valid reason, such groceries.

Joggers were asked to run around the block of their houses, parks and beaches were closed, and the government in Rome prepared to extend school and other closures into the summer months.

But the outbreak keeps gathering pace in the new global epicentre of a virus that was first reported in December in China and has since transformed the world, straining health care systems, upending lives for millions and pummelling stock markets globally.

The figures released Saturday showed deaths still largely contained to Italy’s richer north, whose world-class healthcare system is creaking under the pressure of coronavirus patients.

But it is better that what is available in the poorer south, where some regions have registered a few dozen deaths - and which the government in Rome is watching closely.

The Lazio region that includes Rome has recorded a total of 50 deaths and 1,190 infections.

The rising death toll comes despite widespread efforts to lockdown the entire country. as buying

Moscow, March 22: Russia on Sunday sent the first of nine military planes which are to take a total of 100 army virus experts and medics to Italy to help fight the coronavirus pandemic there.

The Russian defence ministry said the aid mission was agreed by President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. They spoke on the phone Saturday evening, the Kremlin said.

The military transport planes arrived overnight at an aerodrome outside Moscow and eight medical teams were ready to fly out with mobile aerosol disinfecting units and medical equipment, the

Italy announced 627 new deaths on Friday, as its number of fatalities went past that of China, where the virus originated.

Italy’s government said on Friday it is considering even further restrictions on its already locked-down population as the country reels under the continued spread of the coronavirus.

“In the next 24 to 48 defence ministry said.

The first plane took off Sunday and was due to land at the Pratica di Mare military airport outside Rome, the ministry said.

hours, new restrictions are possible,” Italy’s minister of regional affairs Francesco Boccia said Friday, citing the possibility of banning open-air activities.

The presidents of regions in the north Italy’s richest and the most devastated by the virus - have been pressing Prime Minister Giuseppe

The planes are set to fly out a group of around 100 people including specialists on viruses and epidemics from the defence ministry who have “significant international experience of fighting epidemics,” it said.

The ministry said that the experts had previously taken part in fighting Ebola, African swine fever and anthrax outbreaks. Russia has a total of 306 confirmed cases of coronavirus so far.

Italy’s death toll reached 4,825 on Saturday. Putin visited Italy in July last year and has often spoken of his long friendship with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

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Conte to clamp down even harder on the movement of people, calling for the deployment of the army to help enforce the measures.

“Unfortunately, even today the statistics aren’t going in the right direction, neither in terms of new infections or in terms of deaths,” Lombardy’s president Attilio Fontana said. — Agencies