Italy’s coronavirus death toll topped 100,000 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University data, making it the sixth country to record a death count above six figures.
Italian Health Ministry data showed the country registered a further 318 deaths in the 24 hours to Monday, bringing its total number of fatalities during the pandemic to 100,103.
On Monday, Prime Minister Mario Draghi recalled how a year ago on March 10, Italy was the first Western country to declare hard lockdown measures.
“We would never have thought that a year later we would still be facing a similar emergency and that the official death toll would have approached the terrible threshold of 100,000 dead,” he said in a video message to a gender equality conference.
“The pandemic has not yet been defeated, but with the acceleration of the vaccination plan, a way out is not far away,” Draghi said, thanking Italian citizens for their patience and discipline, especially those suffering economic consequences from the crisis.
He said the country is seeing a rise in cases. In the past 24 hours, 13,092 new infections were recorded, and ICU occupancy is up to 2,700, 95 more than a day earlier.
Almost 5.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in the country, but Draghi aims to speed up the vaccination schedule.
