ROME — Italian health authorities on Tuesday lamented the still dramatically high daily number of deaths as the country struggles through a second surge of coronavirus infections.

Italy registered 846 deaths since Monday, increasing the known number of dead in the pandemic to 65,857, the highest in Europe.

Gianni Rezza, the Health Ministry’s director general for protection, said it was difficult to strike a balance between restrictive measures and easing them.

“When we put more restrictive measures in place, behavior becomes more prudent, the virus slows down,” he told reporters. “As we ease the measures, the cases go up. As we restrict them, in a few weeks, they (the data) improve.”

There were just under 15,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, raising Italy’s overall count to more than 1,870,000.