closure at christmas, school, transport and rsa. Lopalco’s analysis

Closing around Christmas holidays? “From now until then, at the time of a pandemic, there is a geological age. We cannot know what can happen in so many weeks.” Pierluigi Lopalco underlined this to ‘Timeline, in Sky Tg24, according to which if the majority of infections remain within the family or within the circle of friends, those situations should be limited as much as possible. “Ergo,” we hope that until Christmas we can keep the curve under control, that there is no impact on the hospitals and that therefore we can spend the winter with some normality, because we cannot expect that 100% in the coming months.

For this reason, as a measure against contagion, the Apulian epidemiologist suggests a reinforced use of smartworking and analyzes the numbers of the pandemic, “which do not have the same proportion of hospitalizations as in the first phase.” In other words, “whereas before we had 30 or 40 hospitalizations for every 100 cases, today we have a quarter less. Many are asymptomatic and can stay at home. Hospitals are not under stress.”

Also in Timeline, the regional councilor in pectore for health explained the plan of Puglia: “Every time 50% of the beds are taken care of, we open new departments”.

Regarding the school chapter, which is causing more discussion than anyone, for Lopalco distance education must be the last reason: “We have no evidence that the school is behaving as an amplifier of the virus”

The epidemiologist added that in Puglia there were very few interscholastic conglomerates, no outbreak in 25 schools touched in the province of Bari, “the others were unique cases.” “The school functioned as a litmus test of the fact that there was some intra-family contagion.”

The real problem is transportation: “Let’s focus on fixing them before we send the students home.” According to the former head of the working group, the transport system “cannot be revolutionized in a few weeks” because “these are very important investments to be made.”

So, he adds, “if we decide, as a country system, to put them in the field, let’s do it. But it is not something that can be left to the local authorities: it is about increasing the bus fleet, strengthening the metro. These are huge investments. “.

Among the measures to decongest transportation, “alternatives were also considered that could have lightened them at rush hour, such as flexible school hours or a somewhat more massive return to smart work. Waiting for the possibility of strengthening the infrastructure.” We could also think about these alternative measures ”.

Lopalco’s attention was also focused on the outbreaks in the RSA: “Here the measures to combat the virus must be taken very quickly and above all trying to anticipate the movements of the virus”