Austria is concerned by the Covid-19 threat posed by "some Italian regions", Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Thursday.
"Austria is not worried about Italy but about some regions. We will dispel these doubts with figures," Di Maio told Italian public broadcaster Tg3.
On Wednesday, Austria's foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg said his country would not yet reopen its border with coronavirus-ravaged Italy, citing epidemiological reasons.
A total 234,013 people have been infected by Covid-19 in Italy since the outbreak began earlier this year and 38,429 people currently have the virus, the civil protection agency said on Thursday.
The Italian regions with the highest number of infections currently are Lombardy (20,224) Piemonte (4,556), Emilia-Romagna (2,688), Veneto (1,319) and Lazio (2,754) according to the civil protection agency.
The Covid-19 outbreak peaked in Italy this Spring but it has recorded the third highest number of deaths in the world from the virus after the US and Britain and was the European epicentre of Covid-19 earlier this year. The majority of Covid-19 deaths in Italy have been in the north.
