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Huffpost Italy
“The number of patients admitted to the ICU is increasing exponentially and, as all mathematicians know, the exponential goes crazy at some point.” Antonio Pesenti, director of the Department of Resuscitation of the Polyclinic and coordinator of intensive care of the Crisis Unit of the Lombardy Region due to the coronavirus emergency, does not hide his concern – “which belongs to all of us”, he emphasizes – about the data that the spread of the infection is registered in the region most affected by the virus in the first phase of the epidemic. And bluntly says, if you think about what will happen: “My wrists are shaking.”
Today 1,844 new positives are registered – 1,032 in Milan, of which 504 in the city – 17 deaths. The positive numbers are increasing and admissions to intensive care units are increasing. A situation so delicate as not to exclude the Lombard governor Attilio Fontana from a possible confinement in Milan.
“For now we can keep up with them – considers Pesenti – and certainly the situation in Milan is delicate, but measures must be taken in hospitals so that these patients are treated properly.” The plan in stages – “step by step” specifies the representative of the Crisis Unit – prepared by the Region to increase the number of places in intensive care is advancing, but the virus is advancing rapidly. Keeping up with him is getting harder every day. “In these days the intensive care unit will be opened at the Lecco hospital and I believe that the health management of the Lombardy Region has already alerted the hospitals.” The final step, “when we have saturated the 17 hubs installed in the region”, will be “to open the hospital built at the Fair”. A future that could be closer than you think, if the forecasts about the increase in infections turn out to be correct. “The virus is galloping fast and there is a fact that should not be overlooked – adds Pesenti – today we see a percentage of the positives for fifteen days hospitalized in intensive care. Considering that today the positives are approximately 6-7 times those of two weeks ago, it means that in fifteen days we will find ourselves in the intensive care unit about 6-7 times more patients. Well, if I think about it, my wrists are shaking. ” Also because -explains the exponent of the Regional Crisis Unit- we will have to go further and intervene, to make other changes, about what happens in hospitals ”.
Pesenti also does not seem comforted by the effects that the new Dpcm will have on the trend of the epidemic curve. “I have the feeling – he points out – that it will not stop the virus in a significant way, that it may be too mild, not very incisive.” According to the director of the Resuscitation Department of the Milan Polyclinic “we should have a clear conversation with the Italians. Since zero risk does not exist, it is necessary for everyone to decide the risk they intend to take. Choose whether to risk spending 20 minutes on the bus to work or 20 minutes at the nightclub. We are all great and capable of making decisions with conscience and responsibility ”.
But in Lombardy the level of concern is broader: not just about intensive care, but about the trend in hospitalizations as a whole.
A point on which this morning, from Sky TG24, Emanuele Catena, director of intensive care at the Hospital “Sacco” in Milan, has drawn attention. “If we imagine projecting this trend in the coming days – specified Catena – in the coming weeks we will be able to find ourselves from the few dozen current hospitalized patients to hundreds. This situation could potentially become very explosive and alarming ”.
And there is a “great concern” about the increase in hospitalizations also in the Cremona hospital. “The months that have passed since the critical phase are very few, the past is recent and has put us to the test,” Giancarlo Bosio, director of the Pulmonology unit, tells HuffPost, “we are more prepared than then, surely we can manage better an eventual new phase, but we would no longer like to see the things we have seen. And we are tired, it is clear that the probability that hospitalizations will increase scares us a little ”.
Above all, taking into account a fact that throws other fears into the future, new uncertainties about the stability of the health system, not only in Lombardy. “The climax of all respiratory diseases and viruses is between Christmas and the period immediately following – Bosio concludes – what we see today could also be the alarm of a situation that could get even more complicated.”
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