(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 3 - Italy registered a record 993 deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the highest daily toll in the pandemic, the health ministry said Thursday.
    There have been 23,225 new COVID cases in Italy in the last 24 hours, the ministry said.
    This compares with 20,709 new cases and 684 more dead Wednesday.
    The ratio of positives to swabs was steady Thursday at 10.2%.
    There were 19 fewer intensive care cases, and 682 fewer admissions to hospital.
    The total number of cases since the start of the pandemic is now 1,664,829, and the victims are 58,038.
    The currently positive are 759,982 (-1,248), and the recovered and discharged 846,809 (+23,474).
    Some 347 people died of COVID in Lombardy in the last 24 hours.
    Premier Giuseppe Conte's government is set to ban travel at Christmas in a bid to stop the festive season feeding a third wave of COVID-19 contagion.
    Italy's COVID vaccination programme will be completed by the start of next autumn, Higher Health Council (CSS) chief Franco Locatelli said Thursday.
    The European Medicines Agency, he said, will give a preliminary assessment of documentation for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines on December 29 and January 12, and this should make available 3.4 million doses to vaccinate 1.7 million people.
    Vaccination is expected to start in the second half of January, Locatelli said.
    "By the end of the summer or the start of the autumn, we should have completed the administration of of the biggest mass vaccination campaign that has ever taken place in this country," Locatelli said.
    Italy's COVID commissioner, Domenico Arcuri, said Friday that it would be possible to give all Italians the new jab by the end of September.
    Arcuri said there would be a concerted government campaign to overcome any misgivings people may have to get the jab.
    He said Italy was entitled to 13.46% of the vaccine doses put aside by the EU.
    Arcuri said there would be 1,500 vaccinations points during the second phase of the programme including paediatricians and pharmacies.
    According to a draft decree, which is expected to be definitively approved after talks with Italy's regional governments on Thursday, movement between regions will be banned from December 21 until the Epiphany national holiday on June 6.
    People will not be allowed to transfer to their holiday homes.
    Furthermore, it will not be possible to move outside one's town or city of residence on Christmas Day, St Stephen's Day and New Year's Day, sources said.
    The government is also set to maintain the current night curfew, with people not allowed out of their homes from 10pm until 5am, except for work or health reasons or other urgent situations.
    That means, among other things, it will not be possible to attend the traditional Christmas midnight mass. (ANSA).