Italy and Spain have been singled out by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) as good examples of how to successfully contain the coronavirus. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, made his remarks on 1 July during a virtual conference on the covid-19 crisis.

"In March, Italy and Spain were the epicentre of the pandemic" - Tedros said - "At the peak of its epidemic, Spain had almost 10,000 cases a day, and Italy had more than 6,500 cases."