Italy records lowest virus death toll in over two weeks

ROME - Italy on Sunday recorded its lowest daily death toll from the novel coronavirus in over two weeks and saw the number of critical care patients decline for the second day.

The 525 official COVID-19 fatalities reported by the civil protection service were the lowest since 427 registered on March 19.

"This is good news but we should not let our guard down," civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told reporters.

Officials also reported the first decline in the number of non-critical COVID-19 patients receiving hospital care.

That number fell from 29,010 on Saturday to 28,949 on Sunday.

The number of critical patients edged down from 3,994 on Saturday to 3,977 on Sunday - the second successive decline.

Italy's official death toll, the highest in the world, now stands at 15,887.