“Meanwhile, isolate families with positive aspects”

The Emilia Romagna region the contrast activity of the coronavirus continues to insist on swabs, to make an increasing number of them daily, controls, through the use of quick swabs, contact tracing and prevention, identifying asymptomatic positives, also extending epidemiological screening and Testing serological.

With an even greater focus on locating family outbreaks – as indicated in a note – with local health services that will be able to recalibrate their interventions depending on the workload, which has increased greatly from this point of view after the sharp increase in cases of positivity.

Position shared by the other Regions. Today, in fact, President Stefano Bonaccini, as president of the Conference of the Regions, sent a letter to the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, to define the proposal made to the Government in relation to contact tracing.

“Isolate family members from a positive”

In cases where it is objectively difficult to carry out a complete follow-up due to the excessively positive results recorded, the Regions, through the Departments of Public Health, may reorganize the follow-up and screening activities, identifying specific priorities for timely intervention. However, in the first place, explains the regional adviser for health policies, Raffaele Donini, “the members of the family unit in which the positive case was registered must be isolated.”

If they are symptomatic, the antigenic or molecular rapid smear should be performed, while if they remain asymptomatic the rapid or molecular smear will be performed at the end of the tenth day of isolation. Asymptomatic close contacts, once identified and isolated, will not necessarily be swabs, except in special cases that will be evaluated by public health services. In case symptoms appear, the molecular swab should be done immediately.

In addition to “we all agree to continue testing asymptomatic cases, using all the tests validated in the G7 countries for fast and effective contact tracing,” Donini emphasizes. “Just as it is our intention and that of all the Regions to further strengthen detection activities. For this reason, we are committed to national agreements between the Government and general practitioners so that the latter perform rapid antigenic swabs and guarantee the care of their patients during the isolation period in the event of a positive result ”.

But the Regions go a step further, as Bonaccini explains in the letter to Speranza, in fact expanding what has already been done in Emilia-Romagna with the agreement with the commercial associations of accredited public and private pharmacies, for rapid serological tests directly at the pharmacy for students and their families.

“To also promote the epidemiological activities of large sectors of the population – Donini explains – the Regions may sign specific agreements with pharmacies, blood collection centers, to carry out serological tests or, in the case of accredited private hospitals and outpatient facilities . for the execution of quick swabs. “Finally, active surveillance with a home phone call will be guaranteed in any case for the most fragile subjects, while for cases evaluated ad hoc by public health, on the other hand, it may be possible to Through an App to take charge in a timely manner in case of development of symptoms.In this, of course, the consent of the interested party will be required.

Fast buffers in November

“We are manufacturing more and more tampons – Donini emphasizes -, within the first ten days of November we will have fast tampons – we buy 2 million – that we will use mainly for workplaces, schools and homes for the elderly and people with disabilities. Necessary tests for diagnosis. But at the same time we want to continue doing prevention through extensive epidemiological screening campaigns, carrying out serological tests to identify asymptomatic positives: with the campaign for students and parents, recently extended to grandparents who do not live together, we want to reach at least 400 thousand people to end of the year, they can do the rapid serology directly at the pharmacy, but in recent months we have tested all risk categories, in addition to school personnel ”.

“We must all be clear that the virus continues to attack, so it is necessary to respect all the safety regulations, as well as the new measures introduced by the Government, so as not to frustrate the great effort that the health of Emilia-Romagna and those there works every day – closes the commissioner -: it is everyone’s responsibility to protect ourselves to protect others ”.

Covid Bulletin: +1,192 positive out of 9,600 swabs. Hospitalizations are increasing