Italy's deaths to top 700,000 in 2020, highest since 1944

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 15 - Italy is set to register over 700,000 deaths this year, the highest level since World War II, Gian Carlo Blangiardo, the president of national statistics agency ISTAT, said on Tuesday.
    Blangiardo said it can be deduced that this is linked to the impact of COVID-19.
    "2020 is not over yet but a reasonable analysis leads us to believe that we will go over the threshold of 700,000 deaths," Blangiardo told RAI television.
    "This is a worrying level because the last time something like this happened was in 1944 when we were in the Second World War".
    He said that Italy registered 647,000 deaths in 2019. (ANSA).