Italy has reported 482 deaths from coronavirus, its lowest daily figure since April 12, as the country’s total rose to 23,227.

The number of new cases identified also fell by two to 3,491 and the number of people in intensive care dropped by 79 to 2,733. Almost half this number are in Lombardy, the epicenter of the country’s outbreak.
This plateau is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, but the downtrend has not proceeded as was widely hoped.
A further 2,200 people have also recovered, bringing the total to 44,927. A further 61,725 tests for coronavirus were carried out by Italy today (total completed 1,305,833).

Officials have spoken of a ‘phase two’ in which Italy learns to ‘live with the virus’ until a vaccine is developed, which is likely to be months away at least.