ROME, March 11 (Xinhua) -- Reversing a trend of several weeks of improvement, Italy's COVID-19 situation is getting worse again, the country's Health Ministry said on Friday.
This week, the transmission rate in Italy increased to 0.83 from 0.75 a week earlier. This rate, also referred to as R0, shows how many cases on average an infected person will cause during their infectious period. Although the R0 rate is still below 1.0 in Italy, health officials say the recent increase is significant.
The increase has prompted media speculation that the country could be heading toward a new, albeit milder wave of infections now that most health restrictions have been relaxed.
On Friday, the ministry reported 53,127 new coronavirus cases. This figure is broadly in line with the previous days' reports but is higher than the recent low of just over 18,000 cases logged on Feb. 28. Back in January, the authorities reported over 200,000 new cases per day.
Also on Friday, the ministry reported 156 coronavirus-related deaths, 20 more than on Thursday and to the same number as on Wednesday. These figures are significantly lower than those recorded in January and are way below the all-time highs of nearly 1,000 daily deaths in late 2020. ■