"Italy has already admitted their death figures are inflated by 88%. I am sure this is common as deaths "with" SARS-COV-2 are being counted as deaths "from" SARS-COV-2," Bill Mitchell today said, adding fuel to the perception that Italy's high coronavirus-related fatality rate may be misleading.

Many have been of the view that the over 10,000 deaths in Italy are mostly related to co-morbidities and not only due to COVID-19.

"Case-fatality statistics in Italy are based on defining COVID-19 deaths as those patients who test positive, independently from preexisting diseases that may have caused death... this may have resulted in an overestimation of the case-fatality rate," an expert recently tweeted out.

Besides, there are other factors contributing to the high rate of fatality in the country.

“The age of our patients in hospitals is substantially older - the median is 67, while in China it was 46,” Prof Ricciardi recently said. "A study in JAMA this week found that almost 40 percent of infections and 87 percent of deaths in the country have been in patients over 70 years old," reported The Telegraph recently.

A high rate of smoking and pollution in Italy's Lombardy region is also said to be among the causes.