Coronavirus: Italy’s hospitals overflow with the dead as toll tops 1,000
- Officials in hard-hit Lombardy region have cut red tape for burials and processing of death certificates
- As many as 10,000 are likely to be infected in Britain, science adviser says; more European countries close schools to contain spread of disease
Lombardy’s top health care official, Giulio Gallera, said at the request of the hospitals, the region had simplified the bureaucracy needed to process death certificates and bury the dead, with the death toll in Lombardy alone reaching 617 by late on Wednesday.
Italian officials have halted both weddings and funerals for a month in their efforts to control Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak. By Thursday, the country had reported 15,113 infections and has seen 1,016 deaths overall.
Gallera noted that with no funerals allowed, the process of cemetery burials was moving faster than before.
The Vatican on Thursday took the unprecedented step of closing all Catholic churches across Rome to stem the spread of the outbreak. The papal vicar for Rome said the churches would reopen when a broader Italian government crackdown on public gatherings expires on April 3.