ROME — Two northern regions account for far more than half of Italy’s latest confirmed cases of the new coronavirus.

According to Health Ministry figures, Lombardy registered 159 new cases in the 24-hour period ending Tuesday evening, while neighboring Piedmont registered 86 cases. The only other region to have more than 50 cases in the day-to-day tally was Liguria, also in the north.

Italy’s overall number of confirmed COVID-19 infections rose to 230,555 with the addition of 397 cases nationwide. Italy saw one of the lowest day-to-day number of deaths of patients since the first days of the outbreak with 78 more deaths registered.

That brings the nation's count to 32,995 known deaths.