Covid infections on the rise in Italy in the last week. From Bassetti to Gismondo passing through Pregliasco, what do the experts say?
Bassetti
“We don’t have to look at the positive swabs or the percentage of positives, because they don’t tell us anything. We have to look at the serious cases, who goes to the hospital, why they go there and how long they stay. This data is constantly falling. Covid departments are almost empty or they are emptying. It is true, there was an increase in infections at 7 days but I am not worried, I would have been if we had gone from 600 people in intensive care to 700. There is less attention to the problem also because people are tired of the restrictive measures. We must not give up everything but some measures must be lightened “. So to Adnkronos Salute Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa, commenting on the increase in positives in the last 7 days.
“We must continue talking about Covid because we must think about how to defend ourselves, vaccinations for those who have not done so and also the recall, put on a mask when needed. But I believe that the problems will come from outside Italy and we must be careful “, warns Bassetti, referring to the arrival in Italy of refugees from Ukraine, a country where the vaccination rate against Covid is still at 30%.
Gismondo
“We continue to talk about ‘Covid cases’ to indicate people who are positive for the virus. It is wrong”, reiterates microbiologist Maria Rita Gismondo, convinced that she should not worry about the increase in infections from Sars-CoV-2 on a weekly basis. Commenting on the trend at Adnkronos Salute, the director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bioemergency diagnostics at the Sacco hospital in Milan once again invites us not to confuse the concepts of positive and sick.
“The positives” to Sars-CoV-2 infection in this phase “must not alarm us at all”, assures the expert, considering that “as we know – she remembers – at this moment there is an absolutely banal picture” for the overwhelming majority. “Apart from an epidemiological attention that must always be maintained” on all infections, “there must be no alarm even if these increase. Positive and sick – Gismondo repeats – are two different things”.
I pray
The rise in Covid infections “must not be alarming. It may be that a little relaxation has favored the spread, but after all we still have a million positives, it is clear that conditions of diffusibility exist”. So at Adnkronos Salute the virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco, professor of the state of Milan, commenting on the + 14.5% of positives recorded in a week.
“We see the overall effect on the medium term but – reassures the expert – I do not think we will have a peak. There is a progression of improvement but not so sudden. The number of deaths is decreasing – he underlines – and this is the element more beautiful. Maybe we will have some more infections but not serious cases, vaccination, especially the one with three doses, has proved to be very effective “.
However, the doctor’s invitation is to continue to be careful. “It is clear that since we no longer talk about it – notes the virologist – there is this perception of everyone free. It is a difficult phase because objectively we are doing well and all this thanks to the reasonableness of the citizens and also to the progressive and to the precautionary approach decided by the Italian institutions. So now – recognizes Pregliasco – it is not easy, in a transition phase, not to be bewitched by the free all, even looking at the choices of other nations such as England that have adopted different approaches ” .
Cartabellotta (Gimbe)
“With the pandemic data clearly improving and the dramatic situation in Ukraine that has attracted public attention, there is a risk of a serious decline in attention towards Covid, which is a problem that is far from resolved”. This was stated by Nino Cartabellotta, president of the Gimbe Foundation, to the microphones of Radio Cusano Campus, explaining that “the virus continues to circulate very strongly in our country: in the last week in some regions, not only has the decrease in the number of new cases, but – he underlines – in some regions we see some slight increase “.
“In fact, in this phase – continues President Gimbe – the national figure is influenced downwards by the main regions of the North, such as Lombardy with its 10 million inhabitants, where the situation is particularly favorable: this obviously drags the figure down. while – he concludes – in various regions of the Center-South such as Abruzzo, Molise, Calabria, Puglia and Sicily there is already a trend reversal “.
Maruotti (Lumsa)
“The decline in cases on a weekly basis has slowed down sharply. And this data is evident above all in some regions such as Calabria. Since last Thursday the data we have recorded are not in line with the drop in infections we had in the previous week: we have passed from -15% of new cases to -8% in the last 4 days. We need to understand the causes and await today’s data that will tell us a lot about this trend: if we should have more infections than Monday 28 February, it means that we have a problem”. Thus Antonello Maruotti, professor of Statistics at Lumsa University and co-founder of StatGroup19, an inter-academic group of statistical studies on the Covid 19 pandemic, takes stock of the increase in cases with Adnkronos Health.
But what are the causes of this slowdown? “We are asking ourselves some questions and we want to analyze some data – replies Maurotti – For example, the booster doses. If there is a drop in the administration, we have a criticality towards a part of the population that becomes more susceptible. The other could be that schools no longer go to Dad after the change of the rules on distance learning. And in fact the ISS monitoring data show that the infections in the school age group are always stable and there hasn’t been a slowdown “. The statistician then fears that “if we had to stop at a daily average of 38 thousand cases, it is not quite a good number. I would be calmer if we were at 20-25 thousand”.
Sextiles
The coronavirus has not ‘disappeared’ on the contrary it is growing while prudence and attention towards anti-Covid measures are less. “The infections are rising, + 13% in the last seven days. With an estimate of the Rt at 1.3”. Physicist Giorgio Sestili, who has been analyzing and monitoring the epidemic of Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic, underlines this at Adnkronos Salute. “There are 4 regions where the virus is growing: Umbria, Calabria, Molise and Valle d’Aosta”.
What is the cause of this Covid tail blow? “The fact that everything is open and we are less careful but there is still a lot of virus around, we are still in March and it is cold”, replies Sestili.
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