The number of coronavirus cases in Italy maybe 10 times higher than the official data released by the government, the head of the agency collating the data revealed to media on Tuesday.

In the official tally, Italy has already surpassed China, where the virus first emerged. The latest official figures from Italy disclosed that 6,820 people have died from the infection in barely a month, while the number of confirmed cases has hit 69,176.

Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Civil Protection Agency, told La Repubblica newspaper: “A ratio of one certified case out of every 10 is credible.”

He estimated that as many as 6,40,000 people could have been infected. He further said that due to limited testing, thousands of cases in Italy have gone undetected, Reuters reported.

According to CNBC report, after four weeks into the epidemic, Italy now believes that the worst part of this is over as the growth rate has eased since Sunday.

According to Giorgio Gori, the mayor of Bergamo, a small city in Italy that has witnessed the heaviest death toll in the country, the official numbers also indicated a slowdown of the virus in the last two days.

Addressing media Gori said: “I am being cautious because I do not want to delude myself, but at the same time I have a lot of hope that two whole weeks of lockdown plus increasingly restrictive measures are producing results.”

Meanwhile, the government has shut down all non-essential business until April 3 and the cabinet was due to meet later on Tuesday to impose stricter restrictions, including hiking fines for people flouting the shutdown to up to 4,000 euros from 206 euros at present, as per CNBC report.

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