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This week, 102,940 cases of coronavirus infection were recorded in Italy, 14% less than the previous seven days. It’s the lowest number since mid-October, coming after the fifth consecutive week of declining numbers, though in part it could also be due to slightly fewer swabs than the average for recent weeks.
There were also significantly fewer deaths: 3,680 in the last seven days, 20% less than the previous week. While it still averages more than 525 deaths per day, it’s the best weekly figure for about a month and a half.
The percentage of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in intensive care units out of the total available places has decreased in all regions except in the province of Trento, where it has grown little and remains the highest in Italy, and at a fairly high level. concerning what is causing various discussions at the local level. Even in Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, intensive care saturation has remained almost stable, but at a much lower level.
The general improvement of the situation in intensive care is also visible in the map that aggregates the data on the variation of hospitalized patients in the different regions (highest where the circle tends to greenish blue) and deaths related to the population (the size Trentino, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia have more deaths per inhabitant than the rest of Italy, between two and three times those of Lombardy or Lazio.
Veneto is the region with the most weekly infections, in absolute numbers and in relation to population, a record that for almost the entire epidemic belonged to Lombardy. But for the first time in the last month, the cases have dropped.
The only region in which they have increased, in the last week, has been Calabria, where however they remain few. Last week’s map showed a lot of orange circles – there was a general change in the trend of cases, in which the aforementioned drop in the number of tampons could also play a role. The region with the most cases per inhabitant discovered in the last week is still Veneto with 505 per 100 thousand inhabitants (10% less than seven days ago), followed by Friuli Venezia Giulia with 322 (22% less) and the province of Trento with 209 (35% less).
Among the regions that registered fewer cases per 100,000 inhabitants is Piedmont with 74 (58% less than a week ago), but this week there was a problem: the region had also been counting positive rapid antigen tests for some time (and consequently counting the rapid tests between the tests carried out, along with the molecular ones), but then she was forced to change the system by the Ministry of Health. In the recalculation, many tests were removed from the total, and even several hundred positive cases, between December 17 and 18. In short, this explains the low incidence. The other regions where the figure is particularly low are Calabria with 79 (16% more) and Tuscany with 88 (13% less).
At the national level, the positive rate of tampons, that is, those that are positive of the total of those manufactured, continues to decrease and is now below 10%.
Despite the lower number of swabs, the positivity rate remained generally low: in Piedmont, for example, where the greatest decrease in infections was recorded, it was 6%, and it was even lower in Tuscany, Umbria and Abruzzo. In Veneto it is still higher than in the rest of Italy because there is a question now known: the region is making tens of thousands per week, using them in part as a first “skimming” to identify those infected and then confirm their positivity with swabs. . molecular. Therefore, this partly explains the high rate of positivity: a portion of those who rubbed is already very likely positive, because it was found to be positive in the rapid test. However, the positivity rate in Veneto has decreased somewhat compared to last week.
Since Thursday the restrictive measures for the Christmas period have come into force and therefore for this weekend all regions will be in the “red zone”. In the graph that aggregates the time elapsed across individual regions as a yellow zone (the size of the circle), the data on new population-related infections (the highest incidences on the right), and the weekly variation (the highest increases in the upper part) plus some regions are close, with a slight decrease in cases and a relatively low incidence compared to those observed in recent weeks. Calabria has increased significantly, since seven days ago it registered a 19% decrease in weekly infections and today it has 16% more. In addition to the northeastern regions, Emilia-Romagna is the region with the highest incidence of the coronavirus in the population.
The provinces that have registered the highest circulation of the coronavirus among the population continue to be those of the Northeast and in particular those of Veneto: Belluno maintains the record with 1,520 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks, a slight decrease compared to ago seven days. . Then there are Verona (1,234) and Treviso (1,228), while Vicenza (992), Venice (967) and Padua (938) registered slightly less, all three above last week.
A partial explanation for the lower number of swabs that resulted this week was the recalculation of the tests performed in Piedmont, which reduced the total number of tests in the region by more than 200,000 and caused the consequent downward revision of the total number of national tests. . But this is not the only explanation: the tests were actually less, and in particular between Sunday and Monday only 225,000 were reported, a figure that in the past had even been reached in a single day.
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