BRUSSELS/GENEVA, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Over two months after Europe confirmed its first COVID-19 case, latest data started to show encouraging signs of the pandemic abating, bringing a glimmer of hope to this continent.

The coronavirus pandemic had claimed some 65,000 lives and infected more than 750,000 people in Europe as of Thursday evening. Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Britain remained hardest hit.

RISING HOPE

In Italy, four of the past five days -- including Thursday -- have ended with fewer patients hospitalized compared to the previous day, said Franco Locatelli, president of Italy's Higher Health Council.

"As for the number of patients admitted to intensive care, five days out of the last five ended up with a drop compared to the previous day, and this proves the reduction in the pressure on hospitals," Locatelli told a press conference.

Italy's daily number of fatalities too showed clear signs of falling, from the single-day record of 969 deaths on March 27 to 610 fatalities on Thursday. The country also reported 1,979 new recoveries in 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 28,470.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, in an interview broadcast by the BBC on Thursday, said his country may start gradually lifting some anti-coronavirus restrictions by the end of April.

"We need to pick sectors that can restart their activity. If scientists confirm it, we might begin to relax some measures already by the end of this month," Conte told BBC.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said the latest COVID-19 infection figures in Germany gave "reason for cautious hope." "The curve is flattening out," she said after a cabinet meeting.

Merkel stressed that it would be necessary to be "very, very careful" with relaxing the current restrictions. The ultimate goal is not to overburden the healthcare system in Germany, she said.

In France, admissions in intensive care units (ICUs), considered "an important indicator" to evaluate pressure on hospitals, reported a negative trend for the first time since the epidemic began in mid-February. Some 7,066 infected people need intensive care on Thursday, an 82 decline in the last 24 hours.

"The balance is for the first time slightly negative. So we can hope for a plateau, but it is a very high. We have to be careful," said French Director General of Health Jerome Salomon.

Adding to these encouraging signs was good news from London -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was on Thursday evening moved out of intensive care and "in extremely good spirits" in a regular hospital ward, a government spokesperson said.

Johnson was taken to hospital on Sunday, 10 days after testing positive for the coronavirus, and was moved to intensive care on Monday.

DON'T POLITICIZE VIRUS

On Thursday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, once again, called on countries worldwide to "quarantine politicizing this virus at national and global levels."

"As I said in the press conference yesterday, we must quarantine politicizing this virus at national and global levels. We have to work together, and we have no time to waste," Tedros said at a Mission briefing on COVID-19 from Geneva.

The fatality rate of COVID-19 is estimated to be 10 times higher than influenza. "This pandemic is much more than a health crisis. It requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response," he said.

At Wednesday's press conference, when answering a question from the press about U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to freeze U.S. funding to the WHO, Tedros said his message for the world is unity and solidarity, instead of politicizing the virus.

"At the end of the day, the people belong to all political parties. The focus of all political parties should be to save their people. Please don't politicize this virus. It exploits the differences you have at the national level," Tedros told reporters.

"Please quarantine politicizing COVID. That's the way. If we want to win, we shouldn't waste time pointing fingers. We need time to unite," Tedros said.

"No need to use COVID to score political points. You have many other ways to prove yourselves. This is not the one to use for politics, It's like playing with fire," Tedros added.