Suzanne Abou Said Daou

The number of laboratory confirmed and officially announced cases infected with Corona virus or COVID_19, have reached a new high in Italy approaching the number registered in China during the past three months with 63,927 positive cases, and with 6,077 deaths following 601 new deaths announced today, while those in critical condition are 3,204, there are 7,432 who recovered, the main question remains, why is the death toll so high in Italy?

Many conspiracy theories were put forward, and passed via social media forums, including a punishment by the free masons and USA, with claims that Italy has signed contracts with China 4 months ago with a value of 5 billion dollars, even though Italy is one of the ten industrialized countries that are required not to deviate from the American system, as well as that Italy has refused last year to deploy advanced systems of American missiles on its soil, which prompted America to deploy them in Poland, these allegations have shown no basis since USA is now the third in number of infections with COVID-19, the virus has infected till this minute while writing this article, 46,168 cases, with 2,434 new ones, and 582 deaths, 29 are new deaths, 2355 are in critical condition and only 295 recoveries on the soil of USA.

Going back to our question, why does Italy have this high mortality rate?

One of the factors that explain Italy’s death rate (3.8 some claim even 5 percent, while global rate 2.3 percent) might be the age of the population.

According to the The New York Times, Italy has the oldest population in Europe, with about 23 percent of residents 65 or older, and as statistics concerning deaths due to Corona virus indicate that death rate increases with age and predisposing chronic illnesses.

Another factor for this, is that immune systems decline with age, according to the Local, many deaths in Italy were among people in their 80s, and 90s, a population known according to global statistics to be more susceptible to severe complications from COVID-19, especially that these have underlying health issues that contribute to this high death rate.

According to the Guardian, Silvio Brusaferro, the president of Italy’s Higher Institute of Health,  as he said on Friday that the average age of coronavirus victims was 80.3, with the majority having suffered underlying illnesses.

Another important factor is the overwhelmed medical system by the surge of cases, the photo of a nurse collapsing on her desk in Cremona, northern Italy, became a symbol of this overwhelmed system, as well as photos of medical teams suffering bruises to their faces, due to the usage of masks, went viral on social media platforms

 Another factor, with info of “a state of war” that has been adapted unofficially, according to New York Times, a mayor of a town in Italy, complained that doctors were forced to decide not to treat the very old, leaving them to die, to try to save younger patients, the situation has been described in Italy, that it is much worse than that during world war II.

Another hypothesis mentioned in a paper in Medium, a platform on internet to discuss compelling ideas, knowledge and perspectives, under the title “Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance”, the writer Tomas Pueyo, thinks that “RNA-based viruses like the coronavirus or the flu tend to mutate around 100 times faster than DNA-based ones—although the coronavirus mutates more slowly than influenza viruses”, so probably a more virulent mutated form of this “wicked” virus, has been causing havoc to the other epicenters around the world, and causing more damage.

On Friday, according to the previous guardian article, a reader Giovanni Locatelli shared online footage comparing the newspaper’s obituary section on 9 February, with a copy dated 13 March ,where listings took up only one page, on February 9^th, 10 pages were needed on 13^th of March, while convoys of dead people still continue as a daily scene in the sad streets of Italy.

Sources: New york Times, The guardian, The local, Medium, New York Post

Main Photo Source: New York Post.

Map Source: from Baltahji's Tracker, the first Lebanese interactive map created by Lebanese cyber security expert Ghassan Baltahji to track Corona Virus cases.