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Grim milestone as Italy hits 1,000 coronavirus deaths

Italy, the centre of Europe's coronavirus pandemic, has hit the milestone of 1,000 deaths since it saw its first cases in mid-February.

The country's positive cases continued their upward trend on Thursday, registering 15,113 confirmed cases and the death toll hit 1,016.

More than half of those who are in intensive care in Italy are located in hard-hit Lombardy province, which on Thursday reported 605 ICU patients in a region with only 610 ICU beds.

Hospitals in Lombardy are overflowing with the dead.

Lombardy's top healthcare official Giulio Gallera said that at the request of the hospitals, the region had simplified the bureaucracy needed to process death certificates and bury the dead.