Italy tops 69,000 coronavirus cases

ertova’s mayor Orlando Gualdi (L) walks past a building as an inhabitant looks from his balcony on in the village located near Bergamo, Lombardy, on March 24, 2020, where 36 people died of coronavirus in 23 days. - Gualdi goes out every day to talk and reassure the village’s citizens.  | Photo by MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images

ROME — Three weeks into national lockdown, Italy’s daily bulletin about its COVID-19 outbreak added thousands more cases, pushing the nation’s overall total to more than 69,000.

Civil Protection authorities say there were 743 more deaths of infected persons in a 24-hour period, adding to Italy’s overall death toll that is the world’s highest. 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 totaled some 460 fewer. For two days running, the percentage of day-to-day increase in case load 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. The country now has at least 6,820 deaths.