Italy has registered 15,199 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Wednesday, the highest daily tally since the start of the country's outbreak and up from a previous record of 11,705 posted on Sunday. Tuesday saw 10,874 new cases of the highly contagious virus. The ministry also reported 127 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday, up from 89 the day before but still far fewer than at the height of the pandemic in Italy in March and April, when a daily peak of more than 900 fatalities was reached. After declining over the summer, infections have steadily accelerated in the last few months. They are now far more widely distributed around the country than during Italy's first wave, but the hardest hit region is once again Lombardy, around the financial capital Milan. On Wednesday, Lombardy accounted for 4,125 of the country's new cases, with Milan alone recording more than 1,000 infections over the last 24 hours.
