Juliette Gagliardi
Junior Researcher
Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Italy - Statistics & Facts
Italy was the first country outside Asia to face the burden of COVID-19, the new coronavirus discovered in the city of Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. In Italy, the first case was confirmed on February 20 and on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic, when the virus reached more than a hundred countries, causing over four thousand deaths. As of May 2023, there were over 687 million registered cases of COVID-19 worldwide and almost seven million deaths.
Demographics of the patients
Since the detection of the first COVID-19 case In Italy, the number of cases escalated within a few days and the virus started to spread quickly among the Italian population. As of August 21, 2024, Italy recorded over 26.8 million cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), representing one of the most affected countries worldwide. Currently, the regions with the highest number of cases are Lombardy, and Veneto, located in the north of the country, followed by Campania, in the south. Demographic data on the infected patients show that COVID-19 in Italy has hit every age group uniformly. However, the mortality rate appears to be much higher for elderly patients, with people aged 90 years and older having a mortality rate of roughly 12 percent. Nationwide, the number of COVID-19 patients treated in intensive care units (ICU) or hospitalized is slowly decreasing, the mortality rate stands at 0.7 percent for the general population, and roughly 26.4 million people recovered from the virus since its outbreak. After peaking with over 2.7 million cases on January 2022, since February 2023, the number of active coronavirus cases in Italy have been fluctuating between 110,000 and 240,000 cases.Impact on the Italian economy
The outbreak of the pandemic has caused recession and severe economic downturns in several countries. Among the consequences of the economic crisis, nations might experience an increase in unemployment rates and government debt, stock market crash, food insecurity, collapse of some industries, and other. In Italy, the gross domestic product decreased significantly. Since the outbreak of coronavirus, different estimates on the GDP growth based on various scenarios and methodologies have been released. According to the official data, published in February 2022, the Italian GDP decreased by 8.9 percent by the end of 2020. Nevertheless, the impact of coronavirus on the Italian economy might vary according to the industry. During the months of strict measures and rules, some sectors have seen their consumption volume slightly increasing, such as those of food, media, and electricity. Conversely, many sectors experienced a massive drop in consumption, with contraction by over 80 percent. Hotels, gastronomy, leisure activities as well as transportation are among the sectors which recorded the largest losses during 2020.
