A health care worker receives the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a vaccination centre in Rome, Italy, January 27, 2021. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
ROME: Italy reported 421 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, down from 477 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 12,715 from 13,574.
Some 298,010 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, against a previous 268,750, the health ministry said.
Italy has now registered 88,279 deaths linked to COVID-19 since last February, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the sixth-highest in the world. The country has reported 2.542 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 20,098 on Saturday, compared with 20,397 a day earlier.
There were 132 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 148 the day before. The total number of intensive care patients stood at 2,218, edging down from 2,270 on Friday .
When Italy's second wave of the epidemic was accelerating quickly in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by about 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day. (Reporting by Giulia Segreti, editing by Gavin Jones)
