(Bloomberg) --
Italy reported a higher number of new coronavirus cases and deaths on Thursday, as the government considers extending a national lockdown.
Civil protection authorities reported 4,204 new cases of the disease, compared with 3,836 a day earlier. Italy registered 610 deaths linked to the virus in the last 24 hours, compared with 542 the day before. That brings the total number of fatalities to 18,279.
Confirmed cases in the country now total 143,626.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is preparing to extend the national lockdown from a current expiration date of April 13 for another two weeks, according to officials, who asked not to be identified by name discussing a confidential issue.
With medical and scientific advisers urging caution, only selected companies in the food and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as possibly some shops, will likely be allowed to reopen next week, the officials said. Conte could approve a new decree on the issue as early as Friday.
Franco Locatelli, head of Italy's public health institute, said medical and scientific advisers are assessing the risk of infection for individual work categories in preparation for gradually emerging from the lockdown. “People who work to prevent forest fires this summer, for example, are a group in which the risk of contagion is markedly lower,” Locatelli said.
“Faced with an epidemic of this proportion, I'd tend to trust the viral experts,” Deputy Finance Minister Antonio Misiani said on Thursday. “The sooner we get the health situation under control, the sooner we can get the economic engine started again.”
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