ROME – Officials say Italy has recorded a smaller day-to-day increase in new coronavirus cases for the second straight day.

Data released by Italy’s Civil Protection agency on Monday showed 4,789 new cases from a day earlier, nearly 700 fewer than the day-to-day increase reported Sunday.

The number of deaths also did not rise by as much. There were just over 600 registered on Monday compared to 651 on Sunday.

Italy has been anxious to see the day-to-day figures for new cases and deaths go down as its health system struggles under the weight of the world’s largest COVID-19 outbreak outside of China.

As of Monday, Italy had a total of 59,138 virus cases compared to China’s 81,496.

Health authorities have said it will be a few more days before they will know if Italy is at the beginning of a positive trend.

A top government health official, Silvio Brusaferro, resisted being too optimistic, saying that the improvements registered Monday were due to actions taken at the beginning of the month, not in recent days.

`’We need more consecutive results to confirm the trend, to be more certain that we are in a favorable situation,” Brusaferro said.