In the last 24 hours, 712 people have died in Italy from the Chinese coronavirus, bringing the nation’s overall death toll from the virus to 8,215 on Thursday, up from 7,503 on Wednesday — an increase of 8.8 percent in one day, a percentage that has actually slightly declined from the day earlier.

Newly released data from Italy’s Civil Protection revealed that the country’s death toll from the virus has risen from 7,503 deaths on Wednesday to 8,165 on Thursday. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases has also risen from a total of 74,386 on Wednesday to 80,539 on Thursday.

Despite hundreds of people dying each day in Italy, the nation was starting to see a downward trend of coronavirus infections the past few days, which now appears to have ceased, according to a report by La Repubblica.

“The downward trend of people currently positive for coronavirus in Italy stops,” reads the report. “It had been in constant decline for four days in a row — today it is growing again.”

On Saturday, Italy had seen its worst day yet, losing a total of 793 people in a single day to the virus that originated in Wuhan, China.

“Unfortunately, the numbers are not very nice, the number of infected people has increased a bit too much compared to the line of the past few days,” said Attilio Fontana, the governor of Lombardy — Italy’s worst-infected region with the coronavirus.

“We will have to evaluate if this is an exceptional fact determined by some particular episode or if this is an increasing trend, which would be a little embarrassing,” continued Fontana.

“I do not know if the peak has arrived or if we have missed something, these evaluations are up to to the technicians,” he added. “I can only say that I am personally worried.”

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