The comments came after Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists."

With costs escalating because of the pandemic, care home operators say many may not survive without government help.

Shops are due to open on May 18 and the government decided that all movement within individual regions should be allowed that same day, meaning people will be able to visit friends.

He and his entire skiing group caught the virus while on a trip in Italy.

Only the United States has suffered more deaths than Britain, according to the data so far.

The jellyfish was spotted about a month after dolphins were seen on the Italian coastline amid sweeping lockdown measures to slow the coronavirus outbreak.

Italy had the bad luck of being the first Western nation to be slammed by the outbreak, and its total of 26,600 fatalities lags behind only the U.S. in the global death toll.

Even with many former coronavirus hotspots seeing a reduction in new deaths and hospitalizations, a flurry of cancellations of major events made it clear Wednesday that efforts to return to normal life could still be a long and dispiriting process.

European countries sought Saturday to keep people from travelling in sunny Easter weather and grappled with how and when to start loosening weeks-long coronavirus shutdowns of much of public life.

“One day she opened her eyes again and resumed doing what she used to before,” her doctor said.