Covid Italia, Brusaferro: “Rt under 1 in all Regions”

The coronavirus loses strength in an Italy towards the yellow zone, with the RT below 1 in all the Regions and the infections that decrease. “The epidemiological picture this week is significantly improving” explained Silvio Brusaferro, president of the Higher Institute of Health (Iss), during the press conference on the analysis of data from the regional monitoring of the Covid-19 control room. “The European situation is improving and also in our country we are starting to see Regions that take on a yellow color. This means that the incidence tends to decrease”. Read also “In our country, the combination between the measures adopted and the vaccines means that the Italian curve is configured as absolutely positive at the moment” said Brusaferro, underlining that “Rt this week is at a value of 0.78 compared to at 0.86 last week. But the most interesting data is that the upper limit is below the level of 1. And this is important “. The employment figure of the medical and intensive care areas” is decreasing. intensive care we are at 19% compared to 29% of the previous week. We went from 2,056 cases to 1,689 cases, as of May 19. While in the medical areas we went to 19% “. And the 30-day projections are non-saturation and in any case “indicate a low risk in all regions”. “The median age of people who contract the” Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus infection “is falling: this week it is 40 years, compared to 41 the previous week. The median age at first admission also falls, from 65 to 62 years. Another relevant fact is that the median age of people entering intensive care is also progressively lowering from 67 to 65.5 this week “. While” the average age of death remains fairly constant “.” Thanks to the effects of vaccination coverage – he explains – the population that becomes infected in this phase is made up of younger people. The incidence rate is decreasing a little in all age groups, both in the youngest and in the most advanced, more markedly for those vaccinated with priority. “And in fact, driving this decrease is the age group over 80, where appears more consistent, “followed by that between 70 and 79 years and from 60-69”. The fact that the decrease is present even in younger ages “is a positive signal for the circulation of the virus”. “This week was performed “the periodic survey” of the prevalence “of variants of Sars-CoV-2” which is done monthly. We will share the results in the control room next week, so as to have updated data also on the distribution and circulation of variants in our country “announced the president of the Higher Institute of Health (ISS). Now, he stressed,” we need a great attention to tracing and the ability to swab and to promptly identify positive people, so as to be able to quickly isolate them with their contacts, sequencing where possible, to intercept the possible emergence of new variants. Today we know that the so-called English variant is the basic variant that circulates in our country and we must constantly monitor this figure “.