There were ‘only’ 431 deaths in Italy from coronavirus over the last 24 hours, a significant fall, with intensive therapy and other hospital admissions continuing to drop.

The country is on the downward trajectory after hitting its peak of the pandemic last week, as deaths, new cases and ICU admissions have been falling steadily over the last few days.

On Easter Sunday, it was announced that another 431 people had died since Saturday, taking the total for the country to 19,899.

That is a significant drop from the average of 550-600 we had regularly seen for weeks.

The number of patients in intensive care fell yet again by 38, for a total 3,343 at this time.

Another 1,677 were released from hospital or given the all-clear, meaning 34,211 have now emerged from the illness.

There were 4,092 positive tests over 24 hours, but that is also thanks to blanket testing around the country.

Since the start of the pandemic in February, Italy has seen 156,363 positive cases.