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While the Regions now ask to reserve molecular swabs for symptomatic subjects, to lighten the burden on local services, the Scientific Technical Committee confirms instead the line of swabs for asymptomatic patients.
by Andrea Gagliardi
While the Regions now ask to reserve molecular swabs for symptomatic subjects, to lighten the burden on local services, the Scientific Technical Committee confirms instead the line of swabs for asymptomatic patients.
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The number of Covid-positive asymptomatic people detected by tampons has increased thanks to contact tracing, but the exponential growth of Covid cases in recent weeks has put the tracking system in crisis, raising doubts about the strategies to adopt . If the Regions now ask to reserve molecular swabs for symptomatic subjects, to lighten the burden of local services, the Scientific Technical Committee confirms instead the line of swabs for asymptomatic patients. But not without some distinctions.
Brusaferro: it is important to identify asymptomatic
It is important to “identify the asymptomatic” because “identifying people who carry the virus is the first frontier to stop the infection. We need to keep the curve for new infections below a certain threshold, ensuring that people identified as positive “, explained the president of the Higher Institute of Health (ISS) Silvio Brusaferro, speaking at the hearing at the Senate Health Committee. And he added: “It is important to keep tracking the positives, without letting go: if the number is excessive and can no longer be done, steps are taken to reduce the number of positives below the threshold.”
Growing asymptomatic
It is probable that “more than 80% of all those who contract the infection are asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic”, explains Flavia Riccardo from the ISS, underlining at the same time how the number of asymptomatic patients has increased compared to the first months of the epidemic: these are the 56.5% of the total molecular tests carried out in the period July 20-October 20. Instead, the percentage was equal to 15.1% in the first three months of the epidemic (February 20 – May 20). One of the reasons for the warning is also that 20% of infected people are super talkers and are responsible for “70-80% of all infections; but within this 20% of virus super-spreaders, the vast majority are represented precisely by asymptomatic subjects, “says immunovirologist Guido Poli, president of the Transversal Pact for Science. Identifying this category is therefore essential and a valid strategy in this regard, according to Poli, is to proceed with ‘surgical’ closures, that is, selective containment of areas where the data indicate a spread of the infection above the national average , as was done at the beginning. of the epidemic, for example, in Codogno and Vo ‘.
However, rub only the symptomatic ones “I do not think it is a surrender, but it could be a necessary and temporary change of strategy,” said Luca Richeldi, pneumolgo and member of the CTS, commenting on the alarm of a group of physicists from Sapienza . which defined a ‘surrender’ the hypothesis of reforming contact tracing, advanced precisely by the regions.
National “contact tracing” service is coming
Meanwhile, the Ristori decree provides for the creation of a “national service” for “contact tracing.” It will be a “telephone service for people who tested positive” for Covid “or who have had close or casual contacts with subjects who tested positive, with the task of carrying out” contact follow-up “and health surveillance activities, as well as information and accompaniment to the prevention and assistance services of the competent local health authorities “. Operators will also have to upload to the Immuni application “the key code in the presence of a positive case” to “make contact tracing effective using the Immuni application”.
