Italy’s coronavirus toll crosses 4,000 after record 627 deaths on one day

ROME: Italy reported a record 627 new coronavirus deaths on Friday and saw its world-topping toll surpass 4,000, despite government efforts to stem the pandemic’s spread. The Mediterranean country’s daily rate of fatalities is now higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan’s Hubei province.

But Matteo Bassetti of Italy’s prestigious San Martino clinic in Genoa said the government probably had no idea how many people really had the new disease. “There are so many people walking around who have the virus and who are at risk of infecting others,” Bassetti told Italy’s AGI news agency. “The 40,000 cases we are talking about (in Italy) could actually be 100 times higher.”