Italy’s interior minister, who tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week, never actually had COVID-19, the government said on Friday.

The PCR test performed on Luciana Lamorgese on Monday “turned out to be wrong”, her office said in a statement.

She underwent two new tests on Wednesday and Thursday and both came back negative, it said, adding that she “has never been positive for coronavirus”.

The statement blamed the media for the mistake, saying real-time reporting of the positive test “did not allow the necessary and appropriate checks”.

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Italy’s minister for regional affairs, Francesco Boccia, tested positive in October for Covid-19 but has since recovered.

One of the hardest-hit countries in the pandemic, Italy has recorded more than 62,000 coronavirus deaths and nearly 1.8 million infections.

[AFP]

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