Decline in critical coronavirus patients in Italy continues

ROME — The number of patients in Italy’s intensive care beds is continuing to decline.

That’s allowing hospitals to better deal with the covid-19 outbreak, which when it began weeks ago had overwhelmed the national health care system, especially in heavily stricken northern regions.

According to health ministry figures released on Friday, 116 intensive care unit beds were freed up in the previous 24 hours.

For back-to-back days, the daily nationwide tally of new cases was lower than 2,000 — 1,965 coronavirus infections were registered in a 24-hour period, raising to 207,428 cases the nation’s known total in the pandemic.

Doctors have cautioned that many cases have likely gone undetected, as some people with the virus show no or nearly no symptoms.

Italy registered 269 more deaths of persons infected with COVID-19. Its death toll now stands at 28,236. Italy’s worst-hit region, Lombardy, still is registering several hundred new cases daily, while many regions, including that of Lazio, which includes Rome, are registering cases far fewer than 100 each day.