Italy reported 332 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 376 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 22,409 from 19,749 the day before.
Some 361,040 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 345,336, the health ministry said.
Italy has registered 100,811 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 3.12 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 22,882 on Wednesday, up from 22,393 a day earlier.
There were 253 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 278 on Tuesday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 2,827 from a previous 2,756.
When Italy's second wave of the epidemic was accelerating quickly in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by about 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.
(Reporting by Maria Pia Quaglia, editing by Agnieszka Flak)
