Clash between the government and the red regions. The ISS: “Risk analysis looks at the trend is not a tool that gives feedback.” Yellow Campania? “Many cases but stable transmission”

A few hours after the entry into force of the risk zones in Italy – amid political controversies and protests – the press conference arrives at the Ministry of Health to explain what were the criteria, 21 parameters, to confer the scenarios and their colors . Evaluations not based on the political color of the crosses, but crossing the numbers, studying the trend and parameterizing everything with the availability of beds and the ability to track. The president of the Higher Institute of Health is in charge of extinguishing the hypotheses about the authenticity of the data, Silvio Brusaferro, responding to a question on the hypothesis that the data provided by the Regions are not complete as was supposed in the case of Calabria (which ended in scenario 4): “I would exclude the voluntariness of the regions. There has been a huge increase in cases in recent weeks with rapid growth and this puts the system in difficulties, the heavy workload can lead to delays. Risk analysis looks at the trend it is not a rating tool and it is not an assessment“But it is a tool” to understand where we are, how the situation evolves and where we are going. It is an automatic process with very defined strict rules ”.

The mechanism, the algorithm and the evaluation – A mechanism based on the 21 indicators developed and contained in the ministerial decree of April 30, therefore well known for some time. The Regions record the data required by the established indicators and share these numbers with the control room. The control room processes them based on an algorithm provided by the ministerial decree of last spring. They are then sent back to the Regions for further validation. Regarding the indicators Brusaferro explains that “we are in a transition phase and remodeling in which there are outbreaks on which it is necessary to intervene to control the diffusion, returning it to more unstable values ​​or a more controlled speed to be able to face the next months ”. The slogan is “diversified objectives according to the phase” especially to bring the Rt index below the fatal number 1: “All the measurements that are taken must be measured in a period of time of two weeks. First we go below the value 1 for the Rt and first we will see that the cases decrease. We know that, like a train, the virus doesn’t stop instantly either. Strong interventions are needed to stop the race“.

The case of Campania? Rt lower than Lombardy – For this reason, such strict parameters and criteria have been defined for a long time. “We are working on indicators such as incidence, Rt, bed occupancy: if there is a region with apparently few cases and high employment in intensive care, that is a region in suffering. This is data that must be read in its entirety. Data that refer to incidence, RT and resilience ”explains the Director of Prevention of the Department of Health Gianni rezza. He adds: “After 14 days there may be a descaling for regions, just as if in the next control room there were different situations, other regions could turn red. Also, the system is not as rigid and there is the possibility of making red zones even in a region that is not red“. Rezza also explains why regions that seemed to be in great danger were classified as lower risk. A case especially that of the region governed by Vincenzo De Luca ended up in the yellow zone. The Rt“ transmissibility index in Campania it is lower than that of Lombardy or Calabria. This means that the much higher transmission in recent weeks has stabilized even though the number of cases is high.“.

In Calabria possible increase in ongoing transmission – Rezza also explains the case of Calabria (red zone). “The criticality for Calabria arises from an Rt raised to 1.84, this means that even if at this time there is not a particularly high number of cases, Rt leads us to think that there is an increase in transmission and therefore there could be criticality in the number of cases in the near future. Also, there could be an intensive care occupancy of more than 50%. Now there are no excess cases but there is a trend towards criticality, but in 2 weeks the situation may return ”. There was also talk of Lombardy (red zone)) and Ats Milano’s decision not to submit close contacts of positives on time. “We know that Lombardy has a high circulation at the moment. And when the number of cases grows like this, it becomes clear that tracing becomes problematic. This is a critical element, ”says Brusaferro, commenting on Milan Ats’ decision not to dampen the close contacts of the positives. “I know that colleagues in Lombardy are developing electronic tracking systems that can help carry out this type of activity and I think their experience can also be invaluable. ScontroIt can be an additional tool to enrich the toolbox. “