Italy records its worst daily death toll & has 2nd most cases of coronavirus now

Italy has recorded its worst daily death toll since the coronavirus pandemic first broke out, with almost 1,000 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

The situation appeared to be slowly improving with more drops in deaths over the past week.

However, authorities announced on Friday evening that there had been 969 more since yesterday – Italy’s worst daily death toll so far.

In Lombardy - the hardest-hit region in the country – alone, there were 541 more deaths recorded.

Today’s figure brings the total number of COVID-19 deaths in Italy to 9,134, while 589 more have recovered – 410 less than Thursday.

There are now 86,498 cases of coronavirus on the peninsula, with 66,414 of those active.

Of that 66,414, 3,732 are in intensive care (+129( and 36,653 (+3005) are in self-isolation. A total of 10,950 have recovered from 24 hours ago (+583).