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This was stated by an investigation published in the Royal Society Open Science magazine by experts from the University of Melbourne, who carried out a retrospective survey based on the number of deaths. According to them, in the countries analyzed, the data on those who contracted the coronavirus would be, on average, six times higher
In wealthier countries, actual cases of coronavirus could be on average six times more numerous than official ones. Saying this is a retrospective analysis based on the number of deaths that occurred in August in Australia, Canada, the United States, South Korea, and eleven European states. Among these also Italy, where infections could be even 17 times higher than those recognized. This short-circuit of the tracking and diagnostic systems was detected in a study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal by an Australian research group coordinated by the University of Melbourne.
The methodology
deepening
Coronavirus in Italy and in the world, the latest news. DIRECT
“The differences found in the tracking and testing systems of the different countries, as well as the changes that have occurred within them over time, make it difficult to estimate the real rate of infection from the cases confirmed by the swabs” writes the researchers. To overcome this problem, they therefore decided to carry out a retrospective analysis, starting from the number of daily deaths and projecting it over time to return to the moment of infection. “In a nutshell – explains researcher Steven Phipps – we analyzed how many people died from Covid in a country and then we went back to see how many people would have had to be infected to reach that number of deaths.”
And in Italy?
According to the researchers’ calculations, on average this figure was six times higher than the official figure, with considerable differences between the different states. In South Korea, for example, we can learn from the study, the actual cases would be 2.6 times higher than the official ones, while in Italy they would be 17.5 times more than the estimates that have been reported. However, the researchers stress that even their data is not perfect and the analysis method cannot replace, but only complete, the epidemiological models used so far. In addition, in order to have accurate estimates, it is necessary to ensure that the different age groups are equally represented among those infected, because – they conclude – the risk of death from Covid increases with age and this could distort the results in the countries where the majority part of the deaths occurred in nursing homes.
