Coronavirus: Italy records 475 deaths — highest single-day increase ever

With 475 deaths in 24 hours, Italy now has the worst case in the outbreak of coronavirus.

China where the disease broke out in December did not have up to such number of deaths in a single day.

Lombardy, the worst-hit region in Italy, recorded 319 deaths in one day, according to the BBC.

Last week, Giacomo Angeloni, councillor in charge of cemeteries at Bergamo, a town in the Lombardy, said patients are now buried every thirty minutes.

“We are facing an emergency there is no doubting that. We are having a burial every half an hour. We had 18 on Saturday, 44 over Sunday and Monday, 33 on Tuesday and 51 on Wednesday. We’ve had to close Bergamo cemetery for the time being to cope,” he had said.

The country had earlier ordered a lock down in the entire northern region which has a population of 16 million people to check the spread of the disease.

In Iran, 147 people died of coronavirus within 24 hours, the highest to be recorded in the country in a single day.

The death toll in the country has now risen to 1,135.

“Now everyone knows about this disease, and what is very strange is that some don’t take it seriously,” Alireza Raisi, Iran deputy health minister, said at a news conference Wednesday. 

He said if people help, they can control it, and if not, they should expect it to last more than two months.

The deputy minister said 1,192 new infections were also confirmed in the past 24 hours, raising the total cases to 17,161.

He added that Tehran province had the highest number of new cases, 213.

Hussein Sheikholeslam, an Iranian diplomat, had died of coronavirus, and about 23 Iranian members of parliament had tested positive. 

Fatalities have also risen to 558 in Spain where the authorities recorded 60 deaths within 24 hours. 

Fernando Simon, head of the country’s health emergency centre, said the number of cases rose from a previous tally of 11,178 cases and 491 fatalities as at Tuesday.

Reacting, Pedro Sanchez, the country’s prime minister said: “We have never lived through anything like this. And our society, which had grown used to changes that expand our possibilities of knowledge, health and life, now finds itself in a war to defend all we have taken for granted.”