The southern Italian city of Naples braced Friday for further coronavirus restrictions as hospitals risked becoming overwhelmed by new cases, with medics forced to treat patients in their cars, according to AFP.

“The situation in Campania (region) is out of control,” Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told La Stampa newspaper on Friday, adding: “We need urgent restrictions... people are dying.”

Outside the Cotugno hospital in Naples, medics brought out oxygen tanks to treat people parked in their cars outside the crowded emergency room, while others in full protective gear awaited ambulances bringing in new Covid-19 patients.

“We have almost no more beds available,” Rodolfo Punzi, head of the hospital's infectious disease department, told AFP.