Italy’s COVID-19 infections at highest level since May

Italy finds itself at a crossroads in its fight against the global coronavirus outbreak, with some government officials questioning whether the country should walk back some of its efforts to reopen the country’s beleaguered economy.

On Thursday, the country reported 840 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. That is the highest one-day infections since May 16, and it represents the 11th time in 14 days Italy registered more than 400 cases in a single day. Before that, Italy had not seen more than 400 cases in a day in more than two months.

The country’s infection rate is still well below its peak period of more than 4,000 new infections a day in 23 of 25 days in late March and early April, and the new figure is dwarfed by infection rates in the hardest-hit countries that include the India, Brazil, and the United States, all of which saw more than 40,000 daily infections this week.

But the increase in Italy has been enough to make Italian officials second-guess recent steps to reopen the country’s economy.

On Thursday, Italian Health Ministry consultant Walter Ricciardi said that if infection rates do not drop in the coming days, regional elections scheduled for Sept. 20-21 could be pushed back, and that plans to reopen schools in early September could be at risk.

The Technical and Scientific Committee appointed to oversee the reopening of schools met on Wednesday and acknowledged that recent trends were “a concern.” But school plans were not changed and in a statement, the committee said that safely reopening schools remained a priority for the government. The committee will meet again next week, its last meeting before schools are set to open their doors.

Italy restarted its top-division football season in June — albeit with coronavirus restrictions in place — but now some media are speculating the season could be put in doubt after players on AS Roma and Cagliari tested positive for the virus.