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What are the data that will make Lombardy a red zone as of tomorrow?
“The indicators that show how the contagion is growing rapidly and uncontrollably in Lombardy, from which it was decided to enter the list of Regions in the red zone, are mainly three: the now known Rt index, the percentage of swabs positive results and the low resistance of the contact tracing system ”explains Vittorio Demicheli, epidemiologist and member of the control room of the Ministry of Health, who has just finished the decisive meeting by videoconference.
«The regional RT considered, that is, the last one we examined in the control room, is 2.01. Thus, Lombardy falls within scenario 4, the one in which the value is predominant and significantly higher than 1.5. Beyond the technicalities, a scenario of this type, according to the indications of the Higher Institute of Health, “could quickly lead to a high number of cases and clear signs of overload of healthcare services, without the possibility of tracing the origin of the new cases “”.
What about the percentage of positive swabs?
«In Lombardy the new infected are 461 inhabitants out of every 100 thousand, 0.4% of the population. The positive figure based on the swabs performed is 26.6%. Constantly increasing ».
The other indicator refers to contact tracing. What does it express?
«It is the great difficulty of fully tracking the transmission chains with the consequent increase in cases outside of defined outbreaks. Unfortunately, the contact tracking it is too late, despite the efforts made to strengthen the operators aimed at tracing contacts at risk and the adoption of autotrawing.
The Lombardy data also causes a lot of suffering for hospitals. How is the situation?
“There are 1,075 intensive care beds, the occupancy rate is 40%. The criticality threshold is identified at 30%. The occupancy rate for ordinary hospital beds is 37%, within the limit of the critical threshold set at 40% ».
However, the trend of the epidemic is slowing down: in the week ending October 21 the increase in cases compared to the previous one was + 140% (from 7,458 to 17,960), as of October 28 the growth was + 100% (35,922), 49% more (53,665) as of yesterday. A similar trend is also valid for ordinary hospitalizations and intensive care.
“It is a fact. But the truth is that for Lombardy, data in hand, the closure decided yesterday by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Minister Roberto Speranza is necessary. In any case, the problem is that it arrives two weeks late” .
“The data from the last follow-up, at least for what I have in hand as a member of the control room, refers to the week between October 19 and 25. They were indicators that gave early warning signals. Today the situation has worsened.
The Rt index, however, has improved, at least according to the monitoring of the Milan ATS: today it is at 1.6, no longer at 2.01.
«For Lombardy the scenario does not change. Rather, from my point of view, today there are already at least 11 other Regions with hospitals in serious suffering.
The virus assault on Milan in the last 4 weeks: 7,458 new cases, then 17,960, 35,922, 53,665 until yesterday. What Should We Expect?
“We may be starting to see some results from the restrictive measures taken on October 22. But actually slowing down the contagion curve would not have been enough.
November 5, 2020 (change November 5, 2020 | 08:01)
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