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 today said there were 5249 new cases.
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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 case load stands at 8 per cent.
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.
- AP