Rome: Italy reported a sharp rise in its coronavirus death toll on Tuesday, with 743 more victims, breaking a two-day trend that had fuelled hopes the epidemic may be on the wane.
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The daily toll was the second-highest recorded in Italy since the crisis began, but the civil protection agency said that while the number of new cases was up on Monday's figure, the infection rate was slowing.
Three weeks into national lockdown, Italy’s daily bulletin about its COVID-19 outbreak added thousands of more cases, pushing the nation’s overall total to more than 69,000.
After two straight days of day-to-day increases in new cases that had seen lower numbers, authorities on Tuesday said there were 5,249 new cases.
A day earlier, new cases in a 24-hour period had totalled some 460 fewer. For two days running, the percentage of day-to-day increase in caseload stands at 8%. Health authorities have cautioned that it's too soon to say if Italy is about to see a peak in the outbreak.
PTI
