ROME – Italy reported 126,888 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the first time the country has seen more than 100,000 cases in a single day.

On Wednesday, a previous high of 98,030 cases was recorded. According to the Xinhua news agency, the surge on Thursday was the biggest in a single day throughout the two years of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The statistic released on Thursday represents more than 2 percent of the almost 6 million infections reported since the outbreak began. The high number in Italy is part of a wider European trend, spurred mostly by the virus's highly transmissible Omicron strain.

Italy is third in the European Union in terms of total Covid-19 infections, trailing only France and Germany. Despite a generally successful vaccination deployment, the number of cases is rising. Nearly 86 percent of the country's population over the age of 12 had been properly vaccinated as of Thursday.

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