Italy's daily COVID-19 death toll shot back up today with 743 in one day, but more evidence emerged that the coronavirus infection rate is slowing thanks to a painful national lockdown.

Three weeks into a lockdown restricting movement across the country, Italy's daily bulletin about its COVID-19 outbreak added thousands more infections, pushing the nation's overall total up by 5,249, from 63,927 on Monday, to 69,176 today.

Officials said today that yesterday's death toll of 6,077 had increased by 743, bringing the total number of people who have died from the pandemic to 6,820.

The newly-released figures come after two successive days of them falling, with 602 deaths on Monday and 650 on Sunday.

Italian authorities will be hoping this is an aberration and be buoyed after officially registered new infections rose by just eight percent, the same percentage increase as Monday- the lowest level since Italy registered its first death on February 21.

'The measures we took two weeks ago are starting to have an effect,' civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told the daily La Repubblica before the new figures came out.

Military and medical personnel can be seen transporting coffins from a depot in Ponte San Pietro, Bergamo today

A policeman stands near a flying drone used by Italian Police at checkpoint in the Rome's ring road during the Coronavirus emergency, Rome, Italy today

Doctors and nurses at work in the intensive care department of Casal Palocco Hospital 'Covid 3', Rome, Italy today

A day earlier, new cases in a 24-hour period had totaled just 280. For two days running, the percentage of day-to-day increase in case load stands at 8 per cent.

Health authorities have cautioned that it's too soon to say if Italy is about to see a peak in the outbreak.

Health officials across the ravaged Mediterranean country are poring over every new piece of data to see whether two weeks of bans and closures have made a dent in the crisis.

The harshest restrictions are theoretically due to expire on Wednesday evening - although the government is all but certain to extend them in some form for weeks or even months.

A man wears the free protective mask for citizens just received in a pharmacytoday in Venice, Italy. Grafica Veneto has produced these protective masks for the Veneto Region, and volunteers of the Civil Protection have delivered 75 masks to every pharmacy and newsstand in the municipality of Venice

Health workers at work in the temporary structures built next to the Brescia hospital due to the coronavirus outbreak, Brescia, Italy today

A man receives the free protective mask for citizens in a pharmacy today in Venice, Italy

Italy's 743 new deaths broke two days of successive declines that had taken the number down to 601 on Monday.

It set a world record of 793 fatalities on Saturday.

But the rate of officially registered new infections was just eight percent - the same as Monday and the lowest level since Italy registered its first death on February 21.

It had been as high as 50 per cent at the start of March.

Customers have their temperature checked at the entrance of a supermarket in Milan today. Tighter lockdown measures come into force as Italy remains under lockdown. Countries around the world are taking increased measures to stem the widespread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus which causes the Covid-19 disease

Health workers at work in the temporary structures built next to the Brescia hospital due to the coronavirus outbreak, Brescia, Italy today

People wait in line in front of a supermarket in Grotta Perfetta street during the Coronavirus emergency in Rome, Italy today

'The measures we took two weeks ago are starting to have an effect,' civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told the daily La Repubblica before Tuesday's toll came out.

He said more data over the next few days will help show 'if the growth curve is really flattening.'

Few scientists expect Italy's numbers - if they really are dropping - to follow a steady downward line.

Health workers of Villa Scassi Hospital where patients potentially infected with the coronavirus will be hospitalised, in Genoa, Italy today

Coffins wait to be cremated at the entrance of the chapel of a cemetery in the small village of Vertova, near Bergamo, Lombardy, today where 36 people died of coronavirus in 23 days

Health workers at work in the temporary structures built next to the Brescia hospital due to the coronavirus outbreak, Brescia, Italy, today. Tighter lockdown measures come into force as movement remains restricted in Italy

The slowing contagion rate is offering a ray of hope in the midst of a global crisis that is deepening in parts of Europe and the United States.

Scientists believe that countries such as Spain and France are following in Italy's footsteps with a lag of a few weeks.

The numbers from the US are also similar to those of Italy's from about 20 days ago.

Most other European nations and some US states have followed Italy's example and imposed their own containment and social distancing measures designed to stop the spread.

The data that Borrelli has gathered from Italy's 22 regions are of crucial interest to global policy makers and medical experts.

They are however extremely reluctant to draw any definitive conclusions from the two-day drop.

Sara Barbiero (right) and her father Paolo Barbiero (left), members of the Italian relief organization Misericordia Di Arese (Mercy of Arese), load groceries they bought into a car during the coronavirus emergeny lockdown, in Arese, northern Italy today

A general view shows the cemetery in the village of Vertova near Bergamo, Lombardy, today, where 36 people died of coronavirus in 23 days

Medical and paramedic personnel of the retirement home Giovanni XIII, undergo coronavirus tests, after the death of a patient, in Rome today. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems

Italy's daily deaths are still higher than those officially recorded in China at the peak of its crisis in Wuhan's central Hubei province.

They are also higher than those seen anywhere else in the world.

Italian officials are using the downward trend in infections to double down on their insistence that people stay home at all times, no matter the personal discomfort or economic pain.

Most big global banks think Italy has already entered a deep economic recession that could be more severe than anything seen in decades.

The Lombardy region around Milan at the epicentre of the pandemic has begun imposing 5,000 euro (£4,500) fines on those venturing outdoors without a good excuse.

People queue in a supermarket as Milan continues the lockdown of its citizens in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus today across Italy. The Italian government continues to enforce the nationwide lockdown measures to control the spread of COVID-19. As a result of new measures, Italy has seen the number of daily fatalities come down from a world record 793 on Saturday to 651 on Sunday and 601 on Monday

Health workers at work in the temporary structures built next to the Brescia hospital due to the coronavirus outbreak, Brescia, Italy today

Health workers at work in the temporary structures built next to the Brescia hospital due to the coronavirus outbreak, Brescia, Italy, today

Borrelli said he supported the measures because it was 'credible' to assume that the infection rate is 10 times the reported number.

Italy is perplexed over how it managed to become the global epicentre of a pandemic that began on the other side of the world.

Without blaming anyone or any single factor, Borrelli said: 'From the very start, people were behaving in a way that fuelled the national problem.'

People queue outside a supermarket as Milan continues the lockdown of it's citizens in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus today in Italy

A man closes the shutter of a supermarket with an Italian Tricolor flag in Rome, Italy today

Volunteers of the Civil Protection sail a canal to deliver the protective masks that will be free for citizens today in Venice, Italy

But he did point to a Champions League match between Italy's Atalanta and Spain's Valencia's football clubs in Milan's San Siro stadium on 19 February as a particularly egregious mistake.

It was attended by 40,000 fans who celebrated the local team's win deep into the night.

'We can now say, with hindsight, that it was potentially a detonator,' Borrelli said of the match.

Health workers at work in the temporary structures built next to the Brescia hospital due to the coronavirus outbreak, Brescia, Italy today

A boy with an Italian tricolor flag stands on a balcony during a flash mob launched across Italy to bring people together to try to cope with the emergency of the coronavirus, in Rome, Italy, today

The total number of confirmed cases in Italy rose to 69,176 from a previous 63,927, an increase of 8.2 per cent, in line with Monday's growth rate, the Civil Protection Agency said.

Of those originally infected nationwide, 8,326 had fully recovered on Tuesday compared to 7,432 the day before.

There were 3,396 people in intensive care against a previous 3,204.