A nurse has allegedly killed his doctor girlfriend "because he thought she gave him coronavirus."

The incident took place in Sicily, where the couple had been drafted to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Italy is currently the worst-hit country in the world by the pandemic, and John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center reports that at the time of writing, there have been 13,155 deaths.

This man describes his symptoms of coronavirus: 

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Twenty-seven-year-old Lorena Quaranta was found dead at the apartment where she lived with 28-year-old Antonio De Pace. Per the Metro, he has confessed to murdering the medic, who had only qualified recently.

The news outlet added that De Pace had simultaneously slit his wrists, but his life was saved by Quaranta's colleagues.

Afterward, he was taken to the local prosecutor where he explained his actions by saying: "I killed her because she gave me coronavirus."

A police source said: "She was a doctor who was working hard to save others. It's such a tragedy."

The Sun has reported that postmortem tests are now being carried out on the couple to establish whether or not they had the virus. Early indications suggest that this was not the case.

A woman is pictured below being tested for COVID-19.

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Prior to her death, per the Metro, Quaranta had taken to social media to encourage people to follow the rules of the lockdown and stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus.

She wrote: "Now more than ever we need to demonstrate responsibility and love for life. You must show respect for yourselves, your families and the country."

The John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center reports that there have been a total of 956,588 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally and 48,320 deaths at the time of writing.

The Pope has been taken ill one day after showing solidarity with coronavirus suffers and shaking the hands of his congregation.

The 83-year-old has now canceled a planned mass in Rome due to what the Vatican has described as a "slight indisposition", per the New York Times. While the nature of the Pope's illness is not known, while conducting mass for Ash Wednesday yesterday, he was seen coughing and blowing his nose.

The Pope has previously shown disdain for public displays of affection from strangers: 

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According to the Vatican, Pope Francis will be continuing with the rest of his planned work today, but he "preferred to stay near Santa Marta", which is the Vatican hotel where he lives.

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Yesterday, the Pope was pictured touching people and kissing their hands as he walked through the crowds of worshippers who had gathered in St. Peter's Square of the Vatican City.

This comes as people in affected areas have been encouraged to practice impeccable hygiene and maintain social distancing between themselves and anyone who is showing symptoms, per the World Health Organisation.

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The news comes as Italy is declared the center of the European coronavirus outbreak, with the number of confirmed cases rising to 400 today, per the Daily Mail.

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There have been three confirmed cases of coronavirus in Rome, however, they have all been cured.

Today, the death toll from the virus surpassed 2,800 people, per CNN, with an additional 82,000 cases confirmed at the time of writing. To put the scale of the problem into context, there have now been confirmed cases on every continent bar Antarctica.

As reported by Vatican News, yesterday the Pope showed solidarity for those suffering from the virus and praised those caring for them.

He said: "I would like to express my closeness to the coronavirus patients and to the health workers who are treating them, as well as to the civil authorities."

Amid the coronavirus lockdown in Italy, a priest tried his best to allow his congregation to virtually attend Mass - but in the process, he unintentionally activated Facebook's video filters.

A Twitter user posted a clip of the mishap on March 24 and it quickly went viral, with 339.6k likes and 89.1k retweets at the time of writing.

"In Italy today, a priest decided to live-stream a mass due to COVID-19. Unfortunately, he activated the video filters by mistake," Gavin Shoebridge wrote alongside the video.

This is the moment the priest accidentally turned on the face filters while conducting an online Mass:

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The video shows the priest going ahead with the Mass after setting up his camera, completely unaware that his congregation are watching their priest while a series of comical filters appear around his head. Some of these filters included flowers, weights and what appears to be a space helmet.

Naturally, the people of Twitter found the gaffe absolutely hilarious, and took to the social network to share their thoughts.

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One Twitter user wrote: "I woke up my wife to watch this, she has had to blow her nose twice from laughing so hard… My throat hurts so much. I can’t go into our bedroom, I am still giggling and am afraid to wake up our 5 week old son [sic]."

Another commenter added: "I love this so much. I’m not a churchgoer, but I appreciate the effort they’re making for their congregation, despite the fact that they might be technically challenged [sic]."

A third wrote: "Only thing that has made me giggle lately. I’ve watched it 10 times. This sweet priest brought laughter to man unintentionally. God works in strange ways [sic]."

In more serious news, Italy's COVID-19 death toll has recently overtaken that of China, where the infectious outbreak began.

At the time of writing, there are currently 69,176 cases in the country and tragically 6,820 people have died from the disease, per the John Hopkins coronavirus tracking map.

As per the World Health Organisation's most recent situation report, there have been a total of 142,539 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, and 5,393 deaths. These numbers continue to grow by the hour.

Now, a video shared to Twitter has served as yet another chilling reminder regarding the true impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The footage - which the Daily Mail reports was filmed in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy - shows a man speaking in Italian as she shows the obituary page of his local newspaper, L'Eco di Bergamo, from February 9.

On that date, L'Eco di Bergamo's obituary page reported just a page and a half of death notices. At the time, Italy had recorded just three confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The man then reveals an edition of L'Eco di Bergamo newspaper published on March 13. As he slowly turns the pages, he reveals the true devastation of the disease, as the obituaries now consist of 10 full pages.

You can see the video in the tweet below:

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The video was later shared to Twitter by Rai News 24 journalist Enrica Toninelli.

Translated from Italian to English, Toninelli captions the video: "Impressive! The obituaries on the Eco of Bergamo, compared with those of a month ago, give the idea of the impact in human lives of the #coronavirus".

As of March 13, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country of Italy had skyrocketed to 17,600, including 1,266 deaths, the Mail reports.

Per The Sun, the latest figures show more than 1,000 people have died from the coronavirus in Italy, with more than 21,000 confirmed cases. The publication also reports that Lombardy is the worst affected region.

A heartwarming video shared to social media earlier this week showing quarantined Italian residents singing from their homes:

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Last week, an Italian doctor treating those infected with COVID-19 took to Facebook to speak out about his experiences working to fight the disease - describing it as a "tsunami that has swept us all".

Per the New York Post, Dr. Daniele Macchini of the Humanitas Gavazzeni hospital (located in the northern city of Bergamo), shared a lengthy post on Facebook warning others about the true dangers of negligence and laxity in the ongoing battle against coronavirus.

In the lengthy post - translated by Dr. Silvia Stringhini, an epidemiologist and researcher at the Geneva University’s Institute of Global Health - Dr. Macchini writes:

"After much thought about whether and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that silence was not responsible.

"I will, therefore, try to convey to people far from our reality what we are living in Bergamo in these days of Covid-19 pandemic. I understand the need not to create panic, but when the message of the dangerousness of what is happening does not reach people I shudder."

Bergamo - a city of about 122,000 some 30 miles northeast of Milan - is currently one of the nation's worth-hit areas, with 1,245 confirmed cases of the SARS-like virus (as of this writing).

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Dr. Macchini continued:

"I myself watched with some amazement the reorganization of the entire hospital in the past week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly ’emptied,’ elective activities were interrupted.

"All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence and surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.

"I still remember my night call a week ago when I was waiting for the results of a swab. When I think about it, my anxiety over one possible case seems almost ridiculous and unjustified, now that I’ve seen what’s happening. Well, the situation now is dramatic to say the least.

"The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace.

"The boards with the names of the patients, of different colors depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia."

As of this writing, the national total of confirmed coronavirus cases in Italy has reached 17,660 infections and seen 1,266 deaths, the BBC reports.

Last Monday, the entire country was put into national lockdown - a measure that still remains in place.

Now, an Italian doctor treating those infected with COVID-19 has taken to Facebook to speak out about his experiences working to fight the virus - describing it as a "tsunami that has swept us all".

Related - Man reveals what it is like to have the coronavirus:

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Per the New York Post, Dr. Daniele Macchini of the Humanitas Gavazzeni hospital (located in the northern city of Bergamo), shared a lengthy post on Facebook warning others about the true dangers of negligence and laxity in the ongoing battle against coronavirus.

In the lengthy post - translated by Dr. Silvia Stringhini, an epidemiologist and researcher at the Geneva University’s Institute of Global Health - Dr. Macchini writes:

"After much thought about whether and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that silence was not responsible.

"I will, therefore, try to convey to people far from our reality what we are living in Bergamo in these days of Covid-19 pandemic. I understand the need not to create panic, but when the message of the dangerousness of what is happening does not reach people I shudder."

Bergamo - a city of about 122,000 some 30 miles northeast of Milan - is currently one of the nation's worth-hit areas, with 1,245 confirmed cases of the SARS-like virus (as of this writing).

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Dr. Macchini continued:

"I myself watched with some amazement the reorganization of the entire hospital in the past week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly ’emptied,’ elective activities were interrupted.

"All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence and surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.

"I still remember my night call a week ago when I was waiting for the results of a swab. When I think about it, my anxiety over one possible case seems almost ridiculous and unjustified, now that I’ve seen what’s happening. Well, the situation now is dramatic to say the least.

"The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace.

"The boards with the names of the patients, of different colors depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia."

In the viral post - which has since been shared more than 35,000 times on the social media platform - the doctor also urged people not to compare COVID-19 to a bad case of the flu:

"Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama. […] And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is ‘temporarily’ put in crisis, the epidemiological disaster is taking place.

"And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.

"Cases are multiplying, we arrive at a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the E.R. is collapsing."

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In the Facebook post, Macchini would go on to describe each ventilator as "gold", and then once again stressed the emotional and physical strain those working in the medical industry are currently facing:

"I saw the tiredness on faces that didn’t know what it was despite the already exhausting workloads they had. I saw a solidarity of all of us who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask, ‘What can I do for you now?’

"Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, who administer therapies instead of nurses. Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can’t save everyone, and the vital parameters of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny.

"There are no more shifts, no more hours. Social life is suspended for us. We no longer see our families for fear of infecting them. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols. 

Macchini finished the startling post by revealing that some of his colleagues have now become infected themselves and then infected their relatives who "are already struggling between life and death". He typed:

“So be patient, you can’t go to the theater, museums or the gym. Try to have pity on the myriad of old people you could exterminate.

"I finish by saying that I really don’t understand this war on panic. The only reason I see is mask shortages, but there’s no mask on sale anymore. We don’t have a lot of studies, but is panic really worse than neglect and carelessness during an epidemic of this sort?"