It is a brutal, merciless race. But Italy has now surpassed China in its death toll from COVID-19. To date, Italy is now over 3,400 fatalities. China’s current number is 3,245. China still has double the number of confirmed cases. But the growth in China is minimal while it rushes ahead in Italy.
Just why the fatalities per confirmed infection ratio is so much higher isn’t altogether clear. Much of it is likely that they aren’t documenting as high a percentage of cases, more infections that haven’t gotten tested, etc. Some of it is probably a higher fatality rate for symptomatic cases. But I don’t think we know the interrelationship between the two.