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| - Italy has for the first time inoculated more than 500,000 people in a day, meeting a key coronavirus vaccinations target, the government said Friday. Authorities initially hoped to reach the milestone by mid-April, but pushed back the objective as supply shortages stymied immunisation efforts across Europe. "Yesterday more than 500,000 doses of the vaccine were administered in Italy," Health Minister Roberto Speranza wrote on Facebook, hailing the institutional "team work" that led to the result. According to government statistics, some 19.5 million doses have so far been administered, and 5.75 million people have been fully vaccinated in a country of around 60 million residents. The government's coronavirus commissioner, army general Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, told RAI public television that 60 percent of the adult population should be fully vaccinated by mid July. The pace of inoculations has stepped up in recent days, but business daily Il Sole 24 Ore calculated that the seven-day average of daily inoculations is still only around 360,000. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Italy's vaccination efforts are slightly behind those of its larger European peers. Just under 25 percent of Italians have received at least one dose of the vaccine, against 28.1 percent of Germans, 26.7 percent of French people and 27.6 percent of Spaniards. Italy badly needs coronavirus relief. Its economy suffered its biggest post-war recession last year, and its official Covid-19 death toll, at more than 120,000, is the second-highest in Europe. aa-glr/kjl
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