ROME,
Italy's main coronavirus indicators continued to improve on Monday, a week into the country's latest easing of health restrictions and despite a slowdown in vaccine rollout.
The latest data from the Ministry of Health showed 7,970 new coronavirus infections Monday, the second time the national one-day figure was under 8,000 in a week and a level not seen since mid-October. Based on the seven-day moving average, the number of new infections has been on an overall decline since peaking at nearly 40,000 in November.
The ministry said COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, claimed 307 lives over the last 24 hours, a slight increase from 270 a day earlier but still the third-lowest one-day count of this year. One of the regions that have still not seen its health status loosened is Umbria, a landlocked region of nearly 900,000 residents in the central part of the country.
Meanwhile, 238 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 63 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Feb. 2.
ALSO READ