(ANSA) - Rome, June 3 - The Civil Protection Department said Wednesday that Italy has registered 321 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours.
    As well as the province of Bolzano, there are eight regions with zero fresh contagions: Sicily, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Umbria, Sardinia, Valle d'Aosta, Calabria, Molise and Basilicata.
    The department said 33,601 people have now died after contracting COVID-19 here, up 71. Tuesday's daily rise in the death toll was 55. Lombardy saw 29 deaths in the last 24 hours, up on 12 Tuesday.
    For the first time since the start of the emergency, the number of regions with no new coronavirus victims rose to 12 Wednesday: Veneto, Marche, Campania, Trentino Alto Adige, Sicily, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Umbria, Sardinia, Valle d'Aosta, Calabria, Molise and Basilicata. The department said 160,938 people have recovered from the coronavirus in Italy, 846 up on Tuesday. It said 39,297 people are currently infected with COVID-19, 596 down. Tuesday's fall was 1,474.
    The total number of cases in Italy, counting the currently positive, the deceased and those who have recovered, is now 233,836.
    President Sergio Mattarella, meanwhile, on Wednesday knighted a first group of citizens for their services to the community during the coronavirus emergency. They included Annalisa Malara and Laura Ricevuti, an anaesthetist from Lodi and a hospital doctor in Codogno who were the first to treat Italy's 'patient zero', and Maurizio Cecconi, a professor of anaesthesiology and intensive care at Milan's Humanitas University, who has been dubbed by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) as "one of the three global heroes" on the pandemic. All were named knight of merit of the Italian republic. The persons were mostly frontline health workers but came from all professions and all roles in the crisis. One of them was Elena Pagliarini, a nurse whose photo of her lying crashed out on her computer keypad became one of the symbols of the medical staff's dedication. A young food delivery from Lebanon who donated 1,000 facemasks was another of those honoured. Another of the new knights was a Carabinieri commander in a town near Palermo who donated his salary to the needy. Other recipients of the award were a Molise-born researcher on a precarious job contract who helped isolate the virus, an ALS sufferer who wanted to donate his ventilator, an Ischia teacher laid low by the coronavirus who continued to teach from his hospital bed, and a supermarket checkout woman who donated three pre-paid cards worth 250 euros each. Others who received the honour were: Mariateresa Gallea, Paolo Simonato, Luca Sostini, Fabio Stevenazzi, Fabiano Di Marco, Monica Bettoni, Marina Vanzetta, Giovanni Moresi, Beniamino Laterza Maria Rosaria Capobianchi, Concetta Castilletti, Francesca Colavita, Fabrizio Carletti, Antonino Di Caro, Lucia Bordi, Eleonora Lalle, Daniele Lapa, Giulia Matusali, Claudia Balotta , Gianguglielmo Zehender, Arianna Gabrieli, Annalisa Bergna, Alessia Lai, Maciej Stanislaw Tarkowski, Ettore Cannabona, Bruno Crosato, Mata Maxime Esuite Mbandà, Marco Buono, Yvette Batantu Yanzege , Renato Favero, Cristian Fracassi, Concetta D'Isanto, Giuseppe Maestri, Rosa Maria Lucchetti, Ambrogio Iacono, Daniela Lo Verde, Cristina Avancini, Alessandro Santoianni, Francesca Leschiutta, and Piero Terragni.