Coronavirus: Italian village reports no new infections for days after blanket testing

Three per cent of residents reportedly tested positive at first

Coronavirus: How to become a 'super-preventer' and help halt the pandemic's spread (MARCO SABADIN/AFP via Getty Images)

A Italian village that was a coronavirus hotspot has seen no new cases for days following blanket testing on all residents, according to local media.

When around 3,300 people were checked for the virus in Vo Euganeo in northern Italy, 3 per cent (around 90) were infected with Covid-19, researchers said.

Most of these reportedly had no symptoms of the flu-like disease at all.

“If he hadn’t have done this,” the head of the Veneto region said, “Vo Euganeo would have seen an explosion of infections.”

Luca Zaia told Italian TV that the community was now “as healthy as can be”.

No new positive cases have been reported in the small Italian village since last week after authorities even tested asymptomatic people, according to newspaper Il Gazzettino. ​

The mass-testing - a trial led by the University of Padua - saw all residents checked for Covid-19 in February and then checked again shortly after.

It was hailed a success by researchers, who told local media that on the second round of testing, the number of positive results dropped significantly to 0.3 per cent.

“We were able to show that isolating all the positive cases allowed us to reduce the rate of infection,” Professor Andrea Crisanti said.

“The real problem is asymptomatic people who test positive,” he told Italian TV. “If we continue to let them wander around, we will never get rid of the epidemic.”

“I think that for every case that goes to hospital, there are more or less 10 people without symptoms.”

Mr Zaia, Veneto’s governor, said the trial was “criticised by most sides” but that isolating numbers of undetected positive cases has resulted in Vo Euganeo being today "the safest place in Italy”.

“I’m sorry that people continue to say that we got it wrong, but at this point, honestly we don’t care,” he said.

Vo Euganeo was put into quarantine in late February along with multiple other towns in northern Italy.

Shortly after, the whole of Italy was put into lockdown amid rising coronavirus cases – which the prime minister suggested on Thursday might go on for longer than planned.

"Restrictive measures work," Giuseppe Conte said.

More than 35,700 people have been infected with Covid-19 to date in the country, with the death toll currently standing at nearly 3,000.

The World Health Organisation has urged countries to test as much as possible for the flu-like virus in a bid to combat its spread.