The president of the Higher Health Institute, Silvio Brusaferro, told a press conference on the coronavirus emergency Friday that "the curve clearly shows us a situation of decrease and that is a positive sign, but it must not make us let our guard down".
Brusaferro added that "the numbers, while contained, are falling" in southern Italy too, amid a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19.
In Lombardy, the worst-hit region, Brusaferro said some 1,822 elderly people had died in the region's care homes.
He said the death rate in Italy's care homes had "risen a lot".
In one home alone, Milan's Pio Albergo Trivulzio, over 110 people have died.
Brusaferro said the average age of death in the Italian epidemic was 80, and the majority of people had died with multiple pre-existing pathologies.
The ISS chief warned against people gathering over the Easter holidays, reiterating "the curves are a positive sign but we can only keep them falling if we keep up containment measures".
Higher Health Council (CSS) President Franco Locatelli echoed that.
"We have had a positive indicator of a fall in the patients hospitalized and in intensive care in a consolidated way for five days now but we must not minimally loosen the measures implemented, which have permitted that in some regions what happened in Lombardy did not happen there too," he said.
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