After two days of fewer increases, the country saw a spike of new infections

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.

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