Italy health official says nation hit ‘plateau’ 3 weeks after lockdown

Italy has hit a “plateau” in the coronavirus pandemic — just three weeks after going into lockdown, one of the country’s top health officials said Tuesday.

Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, chief of Italy’s national institutes of health, said the hardest-hit country in Europe has started to see the rate of new infections slowing down.

But despite the downward trend, Brusaferro stressed that it would be premature to lift any lockdown restrictions.

“The curve suggests we are at the plateau,” Brusaferro said. “We have to confirm it, because arriving at the plateau doesn’t mean we have conquered the peak and we’re done. It means now we should start to see the decline if we continue to place maximum attention on what we do every day.”

There were 4,053 new COVID-19 cases announced on Tuesday compared with 4,050 the previous day, officials said.

Italy has reported more than 101,000 infections, causing at least 12,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

But Brusaferro acknowledged Tuesday that the death toll is likely higher than the official figures, which don’t include people who died at home, in nursing homes and those who were infected by the virus but not tested.

“It is plausible that deaths are underestimated,” he said.

“We report deaths that are signaled with a positive swab. Many other deaths are not tested with a swab.”

With Post wires