ROME (AP) — Italy’s northern Lombardy region is asking the national government to send more vaccines to help stem a surge of new cases in the province of Brescia. Brescia has seen its daily caseload go from the mid-100s at the start of February to 901 on Wednesday thanks in part to clusters of cases traced to the British variant. Doctors say the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Brescia’s main public hospital has gone from an average of around 200 to 300 recently. Brescia, along with neighboring Bergamo, were two of the provinces that were hardest hit during the first wave of the pandemic, which began this time last year and quickly turned Lombardy into the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe.
