Bologna: Coronavirus victims in Italy could be left to die if they are aged 80 or more, or in poor health, under draft plans drawn up for the next phase of the crisis.
The victims will be denied access to intensive care should pressure on beds increase, according to a new regional protocol, seen by The Telegraph, London, from the government's crisis management unit in Turin.
The document lays out in cold detail which patients receive treatment in intensive care and which do not if there are insufficient spaces - triggering concerns for the elderly in other countries if the infection rate follows suit.
Italy now has more than 17,000 positive cases and more than 1200 dead, second only to China. But the rate of death is far higher due to Italy's large elderly population.
Inside the Bergamo cemetery, the epicentre of the outbreak in the north, dozens of coffins fill the Ognissanti church, now an emergency mortuary storing corpses after the region's two hospitals could hold no more.
With funerals banned under Italy's lockdown decree, the city crematorium is set to begin operating on a new 24-hour schedule this weekend to keep up.
Officials had to close the cemetery to stop the elderly from coming by bus to say last respects to fellow friends, neighbours and relatives dying at an alarming rate.
"To see entire generation of Bergamo residents taken in this way - it is unthinkable," said one doctor working inside the Hospital Pope John XXIII, where nearly 150 people have died in recent days.
