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Never so many deaths in Italy caused by Covid-19 in a single day. On December 3, the Civil Protection bulletin and the Ministry of Health reported an increase in 993 victims, for a total of deaths reaching a height 58,038. “It is a painful fact”, begins the mathematician Giovanni Sebastiani, a researcher at the CNR, who studies the application of statistical models to medicine.
Professor, have we reached the peak of daily casualties?
“Unfortunately not. From the mathematical estimates, it would seem that in five to ten days we will reach the maximum level of this wave. Until then, it is likely that we will exceed a thousand. To have a measure of the Italian specificity of this factor, just think that the December 2, only the United States and Mexico had a daily number of deaths higher than ours. We are talking, however, of countries that have a population, respectively, more than five and two times higher than that of Italy. “
What could be the cause of such a high mortality?
“Doctors say that one of the causes may be the very high average age of the Italian population. But Germans also have a high average age, although in Germany the daily deaths are less than half of ours. Another reason could be in the health conditions of Italians over 80 years of age, with more comorbidities than their peers in other states. In Europe, by the absolute value of deaths, we are above all, even in the United Kingdom, which is more populated than Italy. It is important to have a long life, but it is also important to be well: this will be a fundamental point for post-pandemic medicine. Obviously today our preventive medicine is more deficient than that of Germany.
What do you read, however, in the other data of the national bulletin?
“Income and intensive care have comforting numbers, in continuous decline. If things do not change, and I mean the behavior of citizens, the trend should continue. Strictness must be observed. For me, however, the main parameter is another ».
OR?
“Case tracking: if we can’t identify as many infections as possible, the positives escape the isolation mesh, infect other people and all the data goes back up. Now, the priority is to go below 10,000 infections a day to regain tracking capacity. “
With these curves, will we reach this threshold?
“It is not safe, we must limit as much as possible the possibilities of contagion in the next holiday period and we must consider that the worst, for us, is yet to come. Historically, spikes in virus circulation occur in January-February, just like the flu. Also in view of the proximity to those months it is necessary to regain control of the tracking now. Otherwise, the third wave could be worse than the second.
When will we stop worrying about curves and trends?
“I like to use this metaphor: we are in the middle of a career climb. We will reach the plain at the end of spring: we must grit our teeth until spring, when we will begin to relax measures as the percentage of vaccinated population increases.
However, looking at the fall, can the numbers tell us what we did wrong?
«In September we were in full linear growth, the curve for the percentage of positives on the cases analyzed was less than 3%. On September 14 we reopened the schools and, after two weeks, the data began its exponential growth. Now it is certain that the schools have influenced the infection: it is the only factor that changed in mid-September, exactly two weeks (the average time between an infection and its registration) before the spread of the virus became serious. exponential trend “.
So how did the trend evolve?
“On October 13, the first real Dpcm of the second wave was introduced. After about two weeks, the exponential curve began to flex. The deceleration was slow but noticeable. On November 3, the Dpcm for remote schooling was carried out, at eleven days, on November 14 we reached the peak of infections. Here, I firmly believe that schools in a broad sense, understanding the issue of transportation and the gatherings of children outside the complexes, have contributed greatly to the spread of the virus.
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