Italy recorded 219,441 new cases of coronavirus infections on Thursday, surpassing the 200,000 mark for the first time, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
The country had never recorded more than 100,000 new cases in a single day until Dec. 30. But the situation had gotten worse almost every day since then.
The Ministry of Health also announced 198 coronavirus deaths over the previous 24 hours, down from 231 a day earlier.
Though the death toll from the latest wave of the pandemic is on the rise, it remains well below the all-time one-day peaks that regularly topped 750 in late March and early April of 2020, during the pandemic's initial wave, and again between late November to mid-December 2020.
The number of patients in intensive care units in Italy continued to inch higher, reaching 1,467 on Thursday, an increase of 39 over the previous day.
The total number of cases recorded in Italy since the start of the pandemic was just short of 7 million. Within the European Union, only Germany and France recorded more cases.