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Over the past seven days, the number of coronavirus infections has continued to grow, as has been the case since mid-February. From March 5 to 11, 149,808 new cases of positivity were registered, 14.7 percent more than last Friday’s follow-up. This percentage increase has decreased slightly since the third and fourth weeks of February, when weekly growth had always exceeded 20 percent.
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It is still too early to understand if this trend is the sign of a possible slowdown in the epidemic: for now the other data says otherwise, so much so that many observers have begun to speak of the third wave.
One of the characteristics of this third wave is the concentration in limited areas, which makes it difficult to analyze it at the regional level. In many regions, in fact, there are provinces or more municipalities where there is a very high incidence of infections and areas where the incidence remains low. This localized trend could depend on the impact of the more contagious so-called variants of the coronavirus.
For the first time since the beginning of the year, the number of deaths reported in the last seven days has also risen again. There were 2,210, while in the previous seven days it had been 2,000: this is the highest number since mid-February.
In the next month it will be important to monitor the number of deaths to understand if the progression will be different from that of the first and second waves. In March and April of last year, and in the fall, the average age of critically ill patients was higher than it is today, so there was a greater chance of very serious cases and deaths. In addition, the effects of the vaccination campaign must be seen: in many regions, the majority of people over the age of 80 have been vaccinated and administration to school personnel and law enforcement has started.
The region with the highest incidence of deaths compared to the population is Molise, with 9.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days. The incidence remains high in Abruzzo as well, with 8.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, an increase compared to the 6.2 registered in the last follow-up. Calabria and Sardinia are the regions where the incidence is lowest: 0.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
In the last seven days, many provinces, especially in the North, have exceeded 250 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, an alert threshold indicated by the government to decide on the possible closure of schools. It is up to the presidents of the regions to assess the situation on the basis of the data and, if necessary, to activate distance education. In the last ten days, many regions have already ordered the closure of schools as a restrictive measure to prevent the transmission of the virus.
The province with the highest weekly incidence in all of Italy is Bologna, where 626 new positives were found for every 100,000 inhabitants. Throughout Emilia-Romagna there has been a clear resumption of the epidemic: in the province of Rimini there have been 538 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while in the province of Forlì-Cesena 526. The incidence is still very high in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, with 551 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, and Udine with 562 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The growth of cases in Emilia-Romagna is also confirmed by the change in the number of positives in the last week. The increase was 15 percent in the last seven days, but it already started from a quota of almost 400 new positives for every 100,000 people. To try to contain the infection, Emilia-Romagna has included all the municipalities of the metropolitan city of Bologna, the provinces of Modena, Forlì-Cesena, Rimini and Ravenna in the red zone.
The incidence is decreasing in Umbria, the first region to foresee a local red zone in early February, when all municipalities in the province of Perugia and six municipalities in the province of Terni were closed. The effects of the restrictive measures are beginning to show: the incidence has dropped by 2.1 percent.
– Read also: What can we understand about the third wave by looking at Umbria?
The graph that shows the trend of the absolute number of cases in recent weeks shows a net growth in Lombardy, where 31,981 positives were found, while in the previous seven days they were 27,938. The new positive aspects also grew in Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Piedmont, Veneto.
This infographic shows the comparison between the number of weekly cases per 100,000 inhabitants and the percentage variation with respect to the previous seven days: they are useful indicators to evaluate the progression of the infection and verify the effectiveness of restrictive measures. The most delicate situation, as already mentioned, is in Emilia-Romagna, but all the regions located in the upper right area deserve attention: Friuli Venezia Giulia, Piedmont, Marche, the autonomous province of Trento and Lombardy.
According to the latest data update from AGENAS, the national agency for regional health services, there are twelve regions that exceed 30 percent of the beds occupied by COVID-19 patients of the total available places in intensive care. 30 percent is the alert threshold established by the Ministry of Health that measures the saturation of the health system. The highest employment rate is found in Umbria, at 57.6 percent. The autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Molise also exceed 50 percent.
Data on weekly admissions to intensive care units show growth in Lombardy (358 patients in serious condition in the last seven days), Emilia-Romagna (236 patients) and Piedmont (119 patients). There are more contained increases also in other regions such as Campania, Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche, Tuscany, while they remain stable in the other regions.
The number of swabs performed in the last seven days is the highest since the beginning of the year: 2 million 268 thousand tests. In total, 774,547 people were evaluated in the last week.
Currently 4.3 million first doses of the vaccine have been administered in Italy and 1.8 million people have received the second dose. In total 6.2 million doses were administered. In recent days, vaccination rates have risen to almost 200,000 daily administrations.
In the autonomous province of Bolzano, 96.7% of the available doses were used. Lazio, Abruzzo, Tuscany, Marche, Campania, Valle d’Aosta and Puglia also exceed 90 percent. It should be noted that these data depend on the updates of the open data portal created by the Ministry of Health. In particular, the data of the last deliveries could be notified with a few days of delay.
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