Active Covid-19 infections in Italy surpass 1 million after surge in cases

The number of active cases of coronavirus surpassed 1 million in Italy on Sunday, the result of a swift increase in cases over the last two weeks. As recently as June 17, Italy had fewer than 5,75,000 active cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. On Sunday, that number totalled 1.01 million, an increase of more than 75 per cent in a span of 16 days. The Ministry of Health has said the increases in the infection rate are mostly due to the Omicron-5 sub-variant of the virus. Italy became the fourth country in the world to have more than 1 million active cases, following the United States, with 3.5 million, Germany, with 1.5 million, and France, with 1.4 million, according to data from the World Health Organization.