ROME (AP) – After the health care system again failed to protect the elderly – Europe’s highest coronavirus death – and delays in imposing new sanctions by the government, Italy could soon reclaim a record that no one wants.
That was not to be. Italy was the first country in the West to be criticized by Covid-19 and after suffering a massive wave of deaths in the spring, the infection was brought under control.
Italy then benefited from the time and experience leading to the autumn resurgence as it surpassed Spain, France and Germany in recording large new clusters of infections. Yet the virus spread quickly and widely, and 28,000 people have died in Italy since September 1.
Guido Rossi, the former executive director of the European Pharmaceutical Agency, told state TV that “apparently a little reflection is needed” after a record high of 993 deaths a day in Italy. “The death toll in 24 hours is much higher than the European average.”
Italy added another 1,761 victims on Friday, bringing its official total to 63,387, the highest in Britain’s 63,6033 people in Europe, according to Johns Hopkins University. It is assumed that both numbers will greatly underestimate the actual toll due to missed infections, limited testing and different calculation criteria.
However, Italy will be able to overtake Britain even though the UK million people are less than the UK’s 66 million, and it will only surpass the US, Brazil, India and Mexico. According to Hopkins Tally, Italy also has the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population among the most affected countries.
Public health officials argue that Italy is the world’s oldest population after Japan, and the elderly are the most susceptible to the virus.
The average age of Italian victims is around 800. In addition, 65% of Italian COVD-19s who die experience health problems before three or more health tests, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, according to the Italian Superior Institute of Health.
But that doesn’t explain the whole picture. Germany has the same demographic population and yet its mortality is one third of Italy despite having a population of 83 million. The highest daily number of coronavirus victims in Germany was recorded Friday – 8 8, but overall only 21,000 people die.
Analysts point to Germany’s long-term higher per capita costs behind health care, resulting in increased ICU capacity, better testing and tracing capacity, and a higher proportion of doctors and nurses in the population. But Germany also imposed a previous mild lockdown this fall and is now ready to tighten it.
Matteo Villa, a research fellow at the Institute for International Political Studies at the Milan-based think tank Tank, said, “If you can act as soon as possible, even a little lighter in steps, they will do better than acting hard after a while or too late.”
In Italy, he said, the infection began to be banned in September and October and there was a long wait after its medical system was sufficiently strengthened over the summer.
“If you look at France and the UK, you can see that the Italian fare was very bad.” “And if you look at the comparable population with people of the same population, which is Germany, Italy did a lot worse.”
With Christmas visits and the second wave of infections just around the corner with the winter flu season looming, many are wondering how many people will die.
Doctors have blamed systemic problems for Italy’s healthcare system for failing to respond adequately, especially to severely affected Lombardy. They cite the development of private hospitals in Lombardy in recent years at the expense of the public sector. Fewer doctors are going into practice as a result of brain drain and bureaucratic hurdles, while ordinary professionals have complained of a lack of support despite being the backbone of the system.
About 80,000 Italian health care workers have been infected and 255 doctors have died.
“We called for a lockdown in early November because the situation in the hospitals was already difficult,” said Dr F. Filippo Anelli, head of the country’s doctors’ association. “We saw that spring work in you and allow us to get out from under COVID. If this had been done, perhaps the numbers would have been coming down today. “
But the Italian government resisted re-imposing a nationwide lockdown this fall, knowing the devastating impact on the economy, which is beginning to return to life after the spring time shutdown.
Instead, on November 3, the government divided the country into three risk zones with various sanctions. But by then the infection had been doubling every week for about a month and hospitals in Milan and Naples were already overflowing.
Italy also went into a poorly prepared epidemic. It had fewer ICU beds than the average of developed countries. And in recent weeks, investigative news reports have noted that Italy has not updated its influenza pandemic preparedness plan since 2006 – which could help explain its severe shortage of protective equipment and chaotic early response to the epidemic.
The World Health Organization’s report, which was posted and immediately removed from the WHO website, noted that Italy’s 2006 plan was only “reaffirmed in 2017”. The report states that the plan was “more theoretical than practical” and that when the COVID-19 hit, all hell broke out.
“Without the preparation for the flood of critically ill patients, the initial response of the hospitals was temporary, chaotic and creative,” the report said.
The UN health agency said it deleted the report because it contained “inaccuracies and inconsistencies”, and then decided not to republish it because it had developed other ways to assess countries’ response.
Italy also ranked 31st between Indonesia and Poland in a survey of 195 countries surveyed by the Global Health Security Index, a 2019 survey of 195 countries assessing their ability to consider epidemics or other health care crises. Italy was particularly weak in emergency response, preparedness and communication with health care workers during emergencies.
Government officials admit they were caught unprepared, but have strongly defended their response to the revival as scientifically sound and proportionate to prevent the economy from collapsing. The government’s virus commissioner, Domenico Arcuri, said on Thursday that the November sanctions were squeezing Italy’s infection curve.
“Daily infections are coming down, hospital admissions are coming down, unfortunately the number of people who have been admitted to intensive care (J) is coming down,” Arcuri said.
It is a great consolation to Marcela Paula, who announced the death of her 90-year-old aunt on Facebook in December, saying she contracted the virus in a hospital in October after complications following angioplasty.
“My aunt was tough, Trentino was made of fiber,” Paula wrote explaining the extraordinary photo posted by her aunt, this year she caught herself on the set of gymnastics rings. “I want to remember her like this, even though the thought of her and many others dying alone and then being put in a body bag haunts me.”
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