Italy 2020 death toll is highest since World War II as Covid-19 hits

Italy registered more deaths in 2020 than in any other year since World War Two, according to data that suggest Covid-19 caused thousands more fatalities than were officially attributed to it.

Total deaths in Italy last year amounted to 746,146, statistics bureau ISTAT said, an increase of 100,525, or 15.6 per cent, compared with the average of the 2015-2019 period.

Looking at the period from when Italy's Covid-19 outbreak came to light on February 21 to the end of the year, the "excess deaths" were even higher at 108,178, an increase of 21 per cent over the same period of the last five years.

The Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Italy's top health institute, officially attributed 75,891 deaths to the new coronavirus last year, some 70 per cent of this total excess mortality.

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Italy has continued to register hundreds of Covid-19 deaths per day this year. Its updated tally stood at 98,974 on Thursday.

Officially, Covid-19 accounted for 10 per cent of deaths in Italy last year from Feb. 21, with marked regional disparities.

It was the cause of 14.5 per cent of all deaths in the northern regions where the outbreak was first reported in Italy. In central areas it was responsible for 7 per cent of all deaths and in southern ones it accounted for 5 per cent.

Of the 100,525 excess deaths last year, 76 per cent of the total were among people over the age of 80 and 20 per cent were among those aged between 65 and 79, ISTAT said.