ROME — Both the number of people infected with COVID-19 in intensive care or otherwise hospitalized in Italy continued to decline, according to daily figures released on Wednesday by the Health Ministry.

In the nation of more than 60 million, 249 coronavirus patients occupied intensive care beds, while during the height of the pandemic in Italy, several thousand infected patients needed ICU treatment on any given day. Italy registered 202 new cases in the 24 hours ending Wednesday evening, all but a couple dozen of those occurring in northern regions.

The latest cases raised the overall number of known coronavirus infections in the outbreak to 235,763. In the same one-day period, there were 71 known deaths of infected persons, bringing the death toll to 34,114. Authorities say both the number of cases and deaths in the pandemic are certainly much higher, but many in nursing homes or with mild symptoms never received testing.