Reading the data in Covid is not that simple

11/10/2020 Health, Italy



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The Covid-19 epidemic in Italy is worsening and nationally the contagion index Rt is 1.7: the director of the Department of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, Giovanni Rezza, presents the picture of an “epidemiological situation of Covid-19 that continues to worsen”, with “more than 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and almost all Italian regions badly affected. ‘

Like all Monday, cases mark a reduction: they fell to 25,271 (7,000 less in 24 hours), and the number of buffers also fell: 147,725 yesterday against 191,144. Deaths were 356 more in 24 hours and admissions to intensive care units increased to 2,849 in total. With 4,777 new cases, the Lombardy it remains the most affected region, followed by Campania (3,120) and Piedmont (2,876). Although the numbers are down nationally, the proportion of positive swab cases remains high: 17.1%. For three days it has stood values ​​greater than 17%, the first indicator of how the numbers of the epidemic continue to escape from the tracing links.

“In Hospital admissions – Rezza says again – we noticed one growing trend and above all there is an increase in intensive care admissions and this situation justifies the adoption of more restrictive interventions especially in most affected regions. And, of course, it requires the adoption of prudent behavior by all citizens ”.

However, getting a true picture of the epidemiological situation is very difficult because “the Rt index it is calculated on the basis of the date of appearance of the symptoms ”, observes the physicist Giorgio Parisi, of the Sapienza University of Rome. “The percentage of people with symptoms varies from one region to another” and “is not indicated why do people rub».

It would be important to know, according to the physicist, especially considering that “once there were no notable variations, but now it is not clear why so many swabs.” It means, he said, that “the regions are not contact tracking as before and that they cannot get information about what is happening. ‘

Here because the ratio of positives to tampons remains “very high nationwide”: “The fact that the relationship remains constant compared to the days when there are more tampons suggests that a reduction in positive cases is only apparent,” said physicist Giorgio Sestili, founder and one of the curators of the page of Facebook. Coronavirus: scientific data and analysis. Basically, “for every 40,000 tampons we make, we have 7,000 fewer cases: it is as if the ratio between the reduction of tampons and that of cases is constant,” he observed.

L ‘death trend instead it shows a Slow down, in line with the epidemic curve, which now shows to have a doubling time of more than seven days.

On the other hand, the situation of hospitalizations in the intensive care, with a constant number that for a week has continued to indicate 100 units each day. “We don’t know why, we only know the balance and the most likely hypothesis is that some protocol has changed: we must know how many enter and how many leave each day, but these data are unfortunately not communicated ”.