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The contagion data improves, those of the hospitals do not. The future of the epidemic in Emilia-Romagna advances along this double track, destined to remain in the red zone until after Easter. The region entered the zone with more restrictions on Monday, March 15. On that day, the Rt index, which measures how fast the virus is running, was above 1.30 (the limit for red is 1.25). In reality, entire provinces were closed since before, Bologna, already on March 4. Next Friday, from the new monitoring of the national control room, surely the data will emerge better than those seen so far. But still not enough, after less than two weeks, to move up to orange. Above all for one figure, the incidence of cases per 100,000 inhabitants: it should not exceed 250, today it is just under 400.
The first positive signs
They are 2,118 new infections today, based on 19,000 swabs. A positivity rate of 10.6%, which, however, is much lower than that of last Monday, when the cases exceeded 2,800 and the percentage was almost 18%. The next few days will be a testing ground, but the positive signs are already visible: l’Rt regional is at 1.18, in Bologna even at 0.90, well below the dreaded 1. It drops to 382, compared to 441 the previous week, the incidence cases per 100,000 inhabitants, even if it remains above the threshold of 250.
The numbers stay in the red zone.
The positive news ends here because on the hospitalization side the wave does not stop: there are six fewer patients in intensive care (390) but those of Covid 137 more (3,702). It means 4,092 patients in the ward, a third in Bologna. Another 44 deaths, 13 in the capital. The numbers remain in the red zone – Friday’s upcoming national monitoring will certainly return an improving trend, but not enough to move down the range and target orange.
Bonaccini: “Peak reached”
The president of the Region Stefano Bonaccini preaches calmly but looks at the glass as half full: “We have concluded a week that, calibrated in the last one, has seen two thousand fewer positive cases”. In fact, they went from 19,000 to 17,000. We hope to open another week of continuous descent of the curve ”. It would mean “that the restrictions work and are the only ones, along with the behaviors, that allow infections to go down. It seems that the peak has been reached. It is not over yet but it really seems that we have crossed the peak infections a bit in the whole region” .
Schools, just dad
Among the most heartfelt themes is the return of the students to the classroom. “There are national rules that must be respected”, emphasizes Bonaccini, “there is a Dpcm that establishes when schools must close. As soon as we have the numbers that allow them to reopen, we will do so. I hope it will be the last school year with distance education” . In schools “we have had more than 400 outbreaks from January to today. We hope they can reopen as soon as possible.”
