New Covid cases on the rise like February, but it’s a completely different phase of the epidemic



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Despite the number of new coronavirus cases that are being registered For a few weeks it has been similar to the levels reported at the end of February, when the emergency was about to erupt in the country, however, these are two completely different epidemiological phases that are difficult to compare. The Higher Institute of Health (Iss) underlines this on its website, answering a frequently asked question about calculating the Rt index: “Rt tells us that, although there has been a continuous increase in total cases since mid-July, net of asymptomatic cases identified through contact detection / tracing activities and imported cases from abroad (not mutually exclusive categories), there has been stabilization and only recently a slight increase in transmissibility“, it reads.

In other words, even if the number of new cases really As reported daily confirming an increase in virus incidence in recent weeks, transmissibility has not actually grown that much. “This allows us to affirm together with other data that, although the number of cases reported daily is numerically similar to that reported at the end of February 2020, the epidemiological phase is completely different with almost exclusively symptomatic diagnosed cases and an estimated Rt greater than 2“, the experts add.

The ISS highlights how this factor, Furthermore, taking into account that the health service is not suffering an overload situation, it is confirmed that the country has managed to contain the spread of the infection: “This data, together with the number of new cases diagnosed each day, suggests that the great work carried out by local services has for the moment contained the spread of the virus in our territory. Most cases are identified through population screening and contact tracing with the identification of outbreaks and the rapid implementation of isolation and quarantine measures. The fact that there is no overload of care services is a confirmation of this“, we still read.

However, we must not lower our guard: “At the same time, however, the increase in diagnosed cases confirms that the high circulation of the virus (both indigenous and reintroduced from other countries) explains the increase in the work required of the same local services whose response capacities run the risk of being put at risk. test“.



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