Video of Italian Obituaries Puts Coronavirus Death Toll into Perspective

A video posted to social media on Saturday shows a man flipping through an Italian newspaper to show the obituaries of those who have died from the coronavirus in just one city, putting Italy’s coronavirus death toll into perspective.

“Good morning, dear friends, I’m going to give you an idea on how we are situated in Bergamo on Sunday, February 9,” said the man speaking in the video, as he flipped through the newspaper to show just one page of obituaries due to the coronavirus.

In the video, a man speaking in Italian can be seen flipping through L’Eco di Bergamo, a newspaper of Bergamo, Italy, which is just northeast of Milan in the nation’s Lombardy region — the epicenter of Europe’s coronavirus crisis.

“Now let’s go look at Bergamo from today, Friday, March 13,” he added, before slowly flipping through the newspaper once again, counting a devastating ten pages showcasing the obituaries of Italians who died from the Chinese virus.

Watch below:

Bergamo daily newspaper pic.twitter.com/N3ECABz8dr

— David Carretta (@davcarretta) March 14, 2020

As the coronavirus death toll surges in Italy, the country’s national health service scrambles to come up with enough ventilators and ICU beds for patients in overwhelmed healthcare facilities.

Meanwhile, doctors working in Italy’s overcrowded hospitals say they have been forced to ration services for older, sicker patients in order to prioritize younger patients who are more likely to be saved from the Wuhan virus.

Moreover, the mayor of Bergamo has said that coronavirus patients who cannot be treated “are left to die.”

Last week, Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced that he was expanding travel restrictions to cover the entire country in an attempt to stop the Chinese virus from continuing to spread throughout the nation.

In the last 24 hours alone, newly released data from Italy’s Civil Protection reveals that a shocking 368 people have died due to the Wuhan virus, bringing Italy’s death toll from 1,1441 deaths on Saturday to 1,809 on Sunday — the highest daily death toll the nation has seen yet.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.