More than 12,400 people have died with the coronavirus since the pandemic started gutting this country last month, making Italy’s mortality rate around 10.2 percent in comparison with 4.2 percent or less elsewhere, based on World Health Organization figures.
What is the explanation for Italy’s staggering mortality rate? Barbie Latza Nadeau writes in the Daily Beast that there are two explanations:
First, Italy’s more than 105,000 cases of coronavirus infection merely scratch the surface. The real figure, says Massimo Galli, who heads the infectious disease unit at Sacco Hospital in Milan,  is “much, much more,” and if the true number of infections were known the percentage death rate would be more in line with other countries.
The second reason Italy’s mortality rate seems so high is the result of how Italians count their dead. Italy counts anyone who died with the coronavirus as a COVID-19 death. “Only 12 percent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus,” a high official in the Italian health Ministry said last week, meaning their true cause of death was a result of their underlying condition and pneumonia caused by the virus simply sent them over the edge.