Almost three thousand new cases in the last week between Rome and Lazio, with an increase of 30.1 percent compared to the previous seven days. Nothing to do with the numbers of the pandemic, but Covid is experiencing a flare-up in conjunction with the first (and substantial) drops in temperatures. From this perspective, the low level of patients forced to hospitalize, including those housed in intensive care, brings a sigh of relief. Massimo Andreoni, full professor of infectious diseases at Tor Vergata University and in the past president of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, underlines that “we must not cause unnecessary alarmism, because we are very far from pandemic levels”. But he adds: «I fear that the trend we are seeing in recent days as well as the Eris variant is being taken a little lightly». Found not only among those suffering from respiratory diseases. And it is no coincidence that he recalls «the importance of getting vaccinated. So far we have only protected 4 percent of the most affected population, i.e. fragile subjects and those over 65″.
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CIRCULATION
More generally, the infectious disease specialist notes: «There is a general increase throughout Italy. Looking at the numbers, let’s say that we are within an oscillation from one week to the next, which makes us perceive that the virus is circulating a lot. And this was expected because we are approaching the coldest season.” Returning to the data from Lazio, in the last seven days 2,958 new cases have been recorded, on average 422 per day, which translates into a weekly increase of 30.1 percent. In this period of time, 22,669 swabs were carried out in hospitals and pharmacies and communicated to the health authorities, with a positivity rate that increased by 14.7 percent. There have been five deaths compared to 4 last week. However, hospitalizations fell (296 versus 300) and the number of patients transferred to intensive care remained stable (13).
«These are modest variations – reports Andreoni – which do not cause great concern either at a Lazio or national level: nothing to do with the numbers we were reading in the previous three years. But they are not trivial numbers.” The infectious disease specialist’s reference is, on the one hand, to the victims of the disease and, on the other, to the conditions of the (fortunately few) hospitalized patients. «The 192 deaths at national level, which include the five registered in Lazio, reinforce the need to tighten vaccination times. Because those who lose their lives here as in the rest of Italy are fragile people.”
Regarding the conditions of hospitalized patients, Andreoni recalls that «this variant, which we think has become milder in absolute terms, but which still has double effects compared to the flu. When it appeared in China in January, it claimed a significant number of victims: 83 thousand according to the local authorities, more than one hundred thousand according to the International Health Organization”. Remaining in Lazio, the infectious disease specialist underlines that «here the doctors have found the classic symptoms in Covid patients such as high fever, cold and respiratory tract problems, however the virus is also present in what are considered random infections, that is, in patients who have had a heart attack or stroke. We need to understand if this variant may have played a role in cardiovascular diseases.” Also for this reason, he concludes, “it is better to get vaccinated”.
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