“There are many more dead than are officially declared. But this is not a j’accuse. People died and they were never tested because time and resources are limited,” Eugenio Fossati, deputy mayor of the town of Coccaglio, said as quoted by the newspaper.

The WSJ said testing was mostly limited to people showing symptoms, adding that officials and health experts estimated the real number of infected people at hundreds of thousands to several million.

“They are not receiving post-mortem tests. Many of those who die and aren’t tested are old, but you normally don’t have so many people all dying at the same time. It’s corona," Eleonora Colombi, a doctor based near the city of Brescia, said.

Italy ranks first in Europe in terms of the coronavirus spread. According to official data made public on Wednesday evening by the head of Italy's civil defense service, Angelo Borrelli, over 110,000 cases of infection with the new coronavirus have been registered in the country, some 17,000 patients have recovered, and the death toll stands at 13,155.

According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 932,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 46,000 fatalities.