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The virus runs again. Will we return to the situation in March? “No, we are in another world,” he replies. Domenico Arcuri, extraordinary commissioner for the Covid 19 emergency. “First of all, due to geography: in spring a part of the country paid a very high price, now the contagion is much more widespread.”
Is good or bad?
“I do not believe that all of Italy is equal in the capacity to respect the rules, in the infrastructures or in the efficiency of the health networks. Differentiated responses and timely coordination between state and local administrations are needed and will continue to be necessary. As the President of the Republic says, a tuned choir ».
What other differences do you see with the first wave?
“The origin. Later, the virus circulated in hospitals and nursing homes; today 80% of infections occur at home. The children take it out and take it to the family. The average age of those infected was 70 years, Today 40. We were second in the world of infected, the epicenter of Europe. Today we are in position 16 and behind several European countries. But we cannot lower our guard. We must put into practice everything we have learned, it is valid for both institutions as for the citizenship ».
Are you saying that the Italians have let their guard down?
“No. But we have seen the beaches and the evenings in the squares in summer. It is essential that Italians maintain the discipline shown in spring and it seems to me that they have already practiced it. Perhaps even applying some sanctions, even limited ones. We cannot pretend that there is no rebound ».
But then the situation is not so different from March …
“There. Let’s stay with the facts. On March 21, there were 6,557 infected with 26,336 swabs: a positive proportion of 24.9%. On Thursday we had 8,804 infections with 162,932 swabs. A positive participation of 5.4%. If we had had the same incidents that in March, the infected would have been 40 thousand ».
Today many non-symptomatic are tested, right?
Yes, because we can do it. Before, we could only test when the virus had been attacking the body for days. With the consequent entropy of intensive care and high lethality. Now, more than 70% of those examined are asymptomatic. And we can find the virus when it is in an early stage. Home isolation is increasing, hospital admissions, places occupied in intensive care and fatality are decreasing proportionally. The meaning of what we have learned is this: always tracking the virus first, treating people at home more and more.
But GPs don’t have the tools. How they did it?
“We have to give it to them, to them and to the pediatricians. So ask him to get fully involved, a new centrality of local medicine. General practitioners must be able to perform tests at home and treat patients to the greatest extent possible, as the protocols are now standardized. It is no longer necessary to take people to the hospital just because they have a fever of 38 ”.
Couldn’t we think of Covid residences in disused hotels, for those with exposed small and family apartments?
“Something has been done. But more is needed. Also to protect those who cannot do it alone.
In terms of tests per million inhabitants, Italy is in line with Germany, ahead of France. But there are still nights lining up at drive-ins for a swab. How is it possible?
“The drive-in is an initiative of the regions: in some it works, in others it doesn’t. That is why we need to activate general practitioners. And we did 13 million swabs in 8.2 million people anyway. ”
But it was known that the second wave would come, however, the demand for tests is greater than the supply.
“We are now doing more than 100,000 molecular swabs a day and we are preparing to close the gap between supply and demand. We will give the regions the possibility of reaching 200,000 daily buffers very soon. We are closing the public offering of rapid antigen tests and will buy 10 million, not five more. We will distribute them to the ASL, but also to schools, ports, airports and general practitioners.
Arcuri, was it worth spending the summer discussing the benches on wheels, with the problems that are emerging?
«In today’s schools, student infections are 0.15%, five times below the Italian average; 0.32% of teachers, 0.28% of non-teachers. Perhaps the work done was not bad. Today school is one of the most protected places ”.
How much did you spend in those banks?
“For the school I have a budget of 461 million for desks, gels, masks and distribution. Every day 11 million students and teachers receive a free surgical mask in 40 thousand institutions. The contracts stipulated for desks and chairs have a value of 325 million, of which a small part for innovative seats. In total 2.1 million traditional desks and 430,000 on wheels: what the school leaders asked of us ”.
But we did not think of buses for the boys to arrive …
“They asked me to help reopen schools safely.”
Intensive care places have not grown as previously reported. Why?
“Before the crisis, we had 5,179 ICU beds. We have distributed 3,109 fans and today we should have 8,288 seats equipped. Instead, we have 6,628: 1,600 are missing. Days ago I asked the regions where these fans are and when they will equip those beds.
Answer?
“They are responding, slowly. In addition, their so-called plans to strengthen Covid departments have an average duration of 27 months. Indeed, compared to an overall potential of 9,588 intensive care places, 870 people were hospitalized yesterday. Less than 10%. For now we are not risking entropy. ‘
Arcuri, how much are you spending?
“My total commitments are 2,890 million, plus 447 million contracts inherited from civil protection. In addition, for a few days I have available 1.41 billion to update the hospital network. Then 125 million for vaccines, rapid serological, antigenic and molecular tests and 461 million for schools. Of all these resources, 190 million come from donations, the rest from the government. But we are working to report an important part of this spending in the European cohesion and development funds. And so far we have $ 30 million in mask revenue distributed at cost to retailers. FCA, Luxottica and Angelini help us to produce them, without earning a euro ”.
For her there is talk of appointments in important public companies.
«I would like to reassure those who think about it with concern. I already have a task that leaves me no time for anything else ».
