As new cases of Covid-19 grow, “there is no parallel increase in hospitalizations” but “with this rate of growth in cases, however, we risk clogging up the hospitals because it can reach 2 million positives“. Thus Nino Cartabellotta, president of Gimbe Foundation, speaking on the broadcast ‘Italy has awakened “on Radio Cusano Campus.” All the measures put in place so far by the government – he said – are a sum of hot panels that are unable to slow down the circulation of the virus “, explaining then that more smart working is needed to help slow down circulation.
“We have an enormous amount of cases, never seen before – continues Cartabellotta – so much so that many have defined Omicron as the most contagious virus in history and the numbers we are seeing are clear in this sense. We have on a moving average about 100 thousand cases a day” . And having 100 thousand positive people a day means that “1100 are hospitalized in the medical area and 120 in intensive care. Surely it is due to the increase in booster doses and we also hope for the lower virulence of the omicron variant”.
If the congestion of the hospitals is “slower, however the impact is there and with this growth rate we risk reaching 2 million positives and even if the hospitalization rate were 1% we would have 20 thousand people in hospital” . We must therefore try to lower the circulation of the virus. First of all, for Cartabellotta, “we need to limit social contacts, perhaps by increasing smart working”.
“The school represents a basin of infections. It is clear that not having worked on the structural aspects, we can modify as much as we want the screening and quarantine modalities, but with this viral circulation so high we need to make evaluations. If we decide to keep schools open, something else will have to be closed“, added Cartabelotta, commenting on the plan to restart schools in January, in the context of the sharp increase in infections in recent days.
The peak by January – “I hope for a peak of infections by January. From how it rises, the curve does not allow us to make certain forecasts. Surely for a day or 2 we will have fewer tampons and, in percentage, more infected, because in these days of celebration they only those who have symptoms or direct contacts with positives do it, but change little, because buffer or not, diffusion is a fact. Realistically, I still expect growth for several days and I think this requires caution “. This is the prediction of Massimo Galli, full professor of infectious diseases at the State University of Milan, interviewed in Agorà, on Rai Tre.
Omicron breaks the immunity of the newly healed – “We have a slice of the population that has had Covid but Omicron seems to break the immunity of the healed. I have seen several of people already infected with the virus, who have contracted the new variant, which was very rare with other variants: previously we had 2-3 out of 1000 cases of reinfection, with Omicron it is more frequent, even if those who recovered generally show an articulated response to the infection which is further increased by the vaccine “, adds Galli. The expert says he is against the widespread reading that “this is a less serious variant and that ‘if many become infected, this will have the effect of a vaccination’, because it is not so”, since they can get reinfected. And then there is the problem, he added, that the more the virus continues to circulate at this speed, the more new mutations are at risk. “This – he concluded – where it leads I don’t know. If it led to a cold it would be fine, but I’m not sure, just think of what happened in Brazil, where the great diffusion last year led to the birth of a new variant”.