Among the new government’s first measures against the pandemic, many criticized the readmission of suspended doctors to service. Few, however, criticized the suspension of daily data communication, a concrete sign, for citizens, of the end of the emergency. End of the litany about cases, hospitalizations or deaths that fall or fall “compared to yesterday”, as if this information, without all the necessary corrections, were of some importance. Having done so, as far as I’m concerned, the bulletin could have been deleted two years ago.
It doesn’t just skip the bulletin to the public
The problem, which I hope will not become the new government’s mode of action, was however another, much more serious one: to hide behind this decision the much more relevant decision of no longer providing daily numbers to data journalists and researchers from all over the world. , which build models, projections, and well-weighted updates in real time on these data.
For the moment, fortunately, the Regions continue to transfer the daily data – and we hope that the next step will not be to suspend this surveillance activity – but the information remains with the Ministry. As I write this, it is still not known whether these will then be made available to the experts in a raw version, as they are, only late, at the weekend, or if instead only data that has already been reworked, useless for many research purposes, will be provided.
The virus thanks
As the Italian Association of Epidemiology has denounced, this will prevent real-time monitoring that allows us to anticipate the behavior of the virus, once again putting us at a disadvantage. This, in case of new variants, could make us repeat the mistakes made in the past, when these delays have been paid for with a serious lack of timing in the measures compared to other countries.
If the data does not become free, trust in institutions will suffer
Meloni said he will ask for a commission of inquiry into the management of the pandemic. It is curious that it is precisely those who asked that the minutes of the Technical Scientific Committee be made public immediately to interrupt a path of transparency. If the flow of data does not become free again, the management of the pandemic could be affected, trust in institutions even more.