As bad as Italy is, India worries me the most by far.
Calculating deaths/cases is very misleading, as there are many people still in the "pipeline"
Once we run out of beds and ventilators, the picture will look very different. I don't know about you, but I'm not old but I'd much rather be in a hospital if I have a nasty case of pneumonia, but we certainly can't fit 40-80% of the population in hospitals, let alone have enough health workers to treat them.
This article would imply that Italy was coming closer to saturation on hospitals before this virus. Not claiming that this virus wasn't worse. The implication is they were closing to a topping point than elsewhere.
It does fit, in that so far Italy is the outlier, not anyone else. Japan, in particular, but also Norway, Germany, and most of the US.
I think Spain throws a but of a wrench at this, but don't have that looked at handily.
Visits to emergency for Influenza-likeIllness+Pneumonia is at ~1.5x a bad flu season's peak and ~4x a normal flu season. Admissions for the same are at ~2-3x.
I think there are lots of people that don't realize how many die of the flu every year, but that is a different claim.
Italy is counting ALL deaths as Covid deaths.
Their Covid numbers are simply incorrect.