Italy on Wednesday set up a COVID victims remembrance day on March 18 each year, according to a bill approved by a Senate panel. The bill was unanimously approved by the constitutional affairs committee in the upper house in a process that bypasses approval by the sitting parliament.

March 18 was the day Italy saw its total death toll reach almost 3,000 and images of army trucks taking coffins away from full cemeteries in the Lombardy city of Bergamo hit the headlines amid a raging epidemic in the north of the country last year. The day is mean to "preserve and renew the memory of all the people who died because of he epidemic", according to the bill.