Italy recorded 433 deaths from coronavirus on Sunday, the lowest figure in one week and the second lowest in a month.
The total number of deaths reported by the civil protection agency since the start of Italy’s health crisis in February now stands at 23,660.
The nation recorded 3047 new cases of the virus on Sunday, or 1.7 per cent.
The new infections rate is being monitored closely by Italian government as it deliberates on how to exit a lockdown imposed over the first half of March.
The current restrictions are due to be lifted on May 4, and the government is trying to determine which businesses to allow to resume operations, and whether to let people out of their homes.
Rumours and speculation are swirling about when people will finally be allowed to walk the streets freely for the first time since early March.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is expected to hear on Monday the conclusions of a re-opening taskforce headed by former Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao.
The pressure on Conte from the leaders of Italy’s industrial north is also growing intense.
The heads of Milan’s Lombardy and Venice’s Veneto regions have both warned that they might soon have to begin reopening businesses on their own.
“We either close everything and die waiting for the virus to go away, or we reopen and live,” Veneto governor Luca Zaia said on Thursday.
Italian daily La Repubblica estimated on Sunday that 11.5 million Italians – exactly half of the official workforce – have stopped receiving incomes and started applying for government aid.
The Confindustria employers’ federation said 97.2 per cent of companies have reported losses from the shutdown, and 47.3 per cent “very serious” losses.
La Repubblica added that most of the funds approved by Conte in a €25 billion package have already been spent.
But some of Italy’s top scientific experts have said “phase two” of the lockdown, in which Italians will need to “coexist” with the virus, can’t begin until the daily increase in cases slows below one per cent.
Italy’s representative to the World Health Organization (WHO), Walter Ricciardi, said on Sunday “it is absolutely too early” and some regions remain in phase one.
He cautioned it is important not to rush.
“We have to wait until we can count the number of new cases on one hand, not the four-digit growth that we are having,” Ricciardi said.
He endorsed a plan being drafted by Italy’s health minister that calls for continuing social distancing, reinforcing the healthcare system and offering more diagnostic testing.
But he acknowledged that a lack of testing remains an issue, particularly in Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of the pandemic in Italy.
