Italy will extend its state of emergency due to a new increase in coronavirus cases.

The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that he is going to ask the parliament to extend the COVID-19 state of emergency until the end of January 2021.

PM Conte said that the coronavirus crisis needs “maximum attention,” although he also gave an optimistic overview of the situation, saying that the “spread is under control.”

Italy is the country where it all started in Europe, and it was the most affected nation by the virus during the first breakout.

However, the country’s coronavirus death toll got surpassed by the UK fatality rates in the last two months.

The total number of deaths in Italy up to date is 35,894, while 315,000 people tested positive to COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

During the second wave of infections in Europe, Italy is one of the countries that manage the crisis slightly better than its neighbors, however, there were 1,851 new cases and 19 deaths on Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The extension of the lockdown in Italy would mean a new loss to their economy, but it would certainly be effective for saving people’s lives and stopping new outbreaks.