Italy's daily coronavirus death toll hits one-week low

MILAN (Reuters) - Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 433 on Sunday, the lowest daily tally in a week, and the number of new cases also slowed to 3,047 from a previous 3,491, the Civil Protection Agency said.

The death toll had risen by 482 on Saturday, down from 575 on Friday.

The daily tallies of deaths and cases extend the broadly stable situation in place over the last two weeks.

This plateau is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, but the downtrend has not proceeded as fast as was hoped in a country that has been in lockdown for almost six weeks.

Sunday’s number of deaths marked the lowest daily rise since April 12, when it came in at 431, before rising again during the week.

The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 rose to 23,660, the second highest in the world after that of the United States. Total confirmed cases stood at 178,972.