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The number of infections projects us back to the blocking phase, but monitoring and swabs give a clearer view of the phenomenon
in Federico Mereta
The number of infections projects us back to the blocking phase, but monitoring and swabs give a clearer view of the phenomenon.
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The numbers are clear. To read the figures for yesterday, October 1, with 5,724 new cases of positivity, seems to live on a journey through time, returning in mid-April. As if this were not enough, hospitalizations are also on the rise, just over 200 and also new admissions to intensive care. In this sense, the situation is profoundly different compared to the first months of the epidemic, when the prolonged blockade was necessary, which allowed a drastic decrease with the spread of the virus.
It is necessary to continue improving preventive strategies
To finish with the figures, the percentage ratio between new cases and tampons has been around 5 percent. And thus it is a far cry from nearly 30 percent of the darkest periods of the pandemic in Italy. However, these are data that should make us reflect and especially increase preventive strategies even more, focusing on tracking and more. As mentioned, in fact, the numbers are clear. But the analogies in this time travel are almost equal to the apparent contradictions that draw a completely different health response, although in some areas of the country the “weight” of the pandemic is beginning to be felt again in hospitals.
Cauda: we are still in the first wave
In conclusion, we’re in the middle of the second wave, but something seems different. “First of all, let’s not talk about the second wave: as the World Health Organization says, we are still in the first wave because there has not been such a decrease in infections that we can talk about the“ reappearance ”of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. – explains Roberto Cauda, professor of Infectious Diseases at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Rome. Let me be clear: the virus circulates with humans and therefore the period of closure has limited its spread, so much so that we have seen a kind of “stagnation” in the months of June and July for the subsequent recovery with August. But we should not think that the virus has changed or that the clinical manifestations it induces have changed: they have remained the same.
More effective thanks to active monitoring and tracking
However, even with overlapping numbers, the situation, while causing concern, looks different from the first and very tough months of Covid-19. Therefore, the expert invites you to read the figures with another eye. “First of all, the general conditions have changed: Before with swabs we “reacted” to the virus and did much less and to people who already had significant symptoms, today thanks to active tracking and monitoring we are much more effective – continues Cauda -. Translated into simple words, at that time there was only a small tip of the iceberg, roughly 10 percent of the total cases, while currently we can hypothesize to identify 50-60 percent (the second percent is optimistic) of the people who have contracted the infection. “
20% of infections referred to as asymptomatic
Obviously there are still some cases, especially of asymptomatic subjects that unfortunately can transmit the infection: approximately 20 percent of contagion cases would in fact be derived from subjects who do not have any alteration. “This situation also explains why the percentage of positive swabs in the first weeks of the blockade was around 30 percent, while today it is much lower. But you have to work hard, and in that sense the predisposed limitations will go away, whose effects will be seen in any case in a few weeks, to reach the threshold of 0.5-0.6 percent to be considered optimal at this stage ”, Add.
