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The case of the tamponi in Piedmont is enriched with a new episode. In recent days, the Region has come under the lens of the ministry for having counted more than 200,000 quick swabs in the daily report on Covid, adding them to the molecular ones and causing the number of tests carried out to increase to more than one million and 900,000. The ministry deleted them and the Region rebelled accusing Rome of underestimating the infection figures. An accusation rejected to the sender given that, also counting the antigens, Piedmont would have a better relationship between tested and positive cases in Covid than that which arises from the mere molecular count. Therefore, a less critical situation.
Everything seemed resolved in the afternoon when the Councilor for Health Luigi Icardi announced that from now on the Ministry of Health will also calculate the antigen tests and not only the molecular swabs, as Piedmont has always done. This was announced by the Piedmontese councilor Luigi Icardi himself, at the end of the extraordinary meeting of the health commission of which he is the national coordinator and convened in an extraordinary way precisely to settle the matter. “There were no anomalies in the swab data, there was no falsification of the reports, the Piedmont region has always communicated the pandemic data in a rigorous and respectful manner. The anomaly, if anything, arose when the National Bulletin has excluded from the publication of antigen tests, which instead are usually considered in the weekly reports of the Higher Institute of Health ”, explained Icardi.
Immediately afterwards, however, the ministry clarified: “According to what has been learned, the Prevention Director of the Ministry of Health, Gianni Rezza, explained today to the Health Commission of the Regions that in the coming days he will deepen the” case definition ” Covid-19. In light of evaluations by the European Center for Disease Control, ECDC, which has given new indications for the use and counting of antigen tests.
This clarification also comes after Piedmont had improperly reported, for a few days, the antigen tests along with the molecular tests in the number that was communicated to the Ministry of Health and inserted in the daily bulletin. This insertion had been deemed inconsistent by the Ministry of Health and on December 18 the figure was corrected by eliminating the antigen tests. “
For this reason, the ministry reiterates the censorship of the work of Piedmont that has adopted a practice that in a few days, or weeks, will become habitual but that until now was not authorized and for this reason it has alternated the communication of data on the situation in the region.
Piedmont, as well as other regions, as of November had always calculated, along with historical molecular swabs, also the so-called quick swabs, or rather antigenic tests. This sum had triggered, out of nowhere, the number of tests carried out by Piedmont on its population and that had allowed it to go from red to orange and then to yellow. Sum also calculated from Aosta Valley and Molise. However, the asymmetry in the calculations had thrown the regions into chaos: which ones were valid? How the criterion would be calculated.
Meanwhile, Piedmont continues to fight on the buffer front. 674 new cases of people tested positive for Covid-19 (of which 132 after antigen tests), which is equivalent to 4.4% of the 15,483 swabs performed, of which 8,589 antigen tests. So the molecular tests are not even 7,000. On the other hand, deaths increased, 50 compared to 43 yesterday, while after yesterday’s increase, hospitalizations decreased: 228 in intensive care (-9), 3,331 in other departments (-78). There are 36,605 people in home isolation – 1,540 have been cured Since the beginning of the pandemic, therefore, Piedmont has registered 193,765 positives, 7,621 deaths and 145,980 recovered.
