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ROME, July 12-- A series of small local outbreaks and a growing trickle of foreign arrivals are starting to nudge the number of coronavirus infections in Italy higher, according to information released by the Ministry of Health Sunday, although rates still remain a small fraction of the highs recorded in March and April. There were a total of 234 new cases reported in Italy over the last 24 hours, up from 188 a day earlier. It was the seventh time in ten days there were at least 200 new infections in Italy, a benchmark reached just twice in the ten days before. To be sure, rates are far below the peaks of earlier during the pandemic, when Italy saw at least 4,000 new infections 23 times in a 25-day span between March 18 and April 12. According to Italian media reports, isolated clusters of infections and arrivals from outside Italy's borders -- or a combination of the two factors -- are the elements keeping infection rates from falling further. The southern Italian region of Calabria, for example, has had two or fewer new cases of the coronavirus 22 times in the last 30 days, but new cases jumped to 28 on Sunday, due to infections among the 70 refugees who docked in the region on migrant rescue ships. The jump in new cases was enough for Calabria's President, Jole Santelli, to call on the government to use navy vessels to test migrants for the virus before allowing them onto the Italian mainland, according to the Gazzetta del Sud, a major southern Italian newspaper. | 
