​Most of confirmed cases are in the northern part of the country, with 984 cases in Lombardy, 285 in Emilia-Romagna, and 263 in Veneto.

"83 patients have been release from hospital after being cured," he said.

The outbreak was confirmed to have spread to Italy on 31 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Rome. In response, the Italian government suspended all flights to and from China and declared a state of emergency, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte stating that Italy is the first EU country to take this precautionary measure.

On 31 January 2020, the Italian Council of Ministers appointed Angelo Borrelli, head of the Civil Protection, as Special Commissioner for the COVID-19 Emergency. An unassociated cluster of COVID-19 cases was later further detected starting with 16 confirmed cases in Lombardy on 21 February, an additional 60 cases on 22 February, and Italy's first deaths reported on the same day.

The Ministry of Health announced new guidelines for reporting cases on 27 February in response to the previous blanket testing that caused case numbers to surge and inflamed public panic. It would no longer report asymptomatic cases (swabs taken from patients which tested positive but were not showing symptoms) which counted as 40 to 50% of all reported cases at the time. These people would undergo isolation at home and would be followed up with new tests until they were negative.

So far, there have been 34 deaths, a total of 1,694 positive cases of which 478 are confirmed by the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS), and 83 recoveries. (ILKHA)