Almost two thirds of positive patients are in hospital today Covid (64%) are not hospitalized because they have the typical symptoms of the virus such as pneumonia or respiratory problems, but because they discovered they were positive after taking a swab before surgery or hospitalization for another reason. Here is a new signal, perhaps the most important, that Covid is changing its skin and hurts less than the first waves.
The journey to endemic
A signal that shows how from the pandemic we are heading – unless new threatening variants appear – towards the so-called endemic: coexistence with the virus. One more reason to change the communication that has accompanied us for almost three years: one of the first measures that the new Executive should take on Covid is in fact to modify the bulletin that records the progress of the pandemic every day.
The idea that many in the center-right and even some names of eligible health ministers agree is to give up the daily bulletin in favor of a weekly report. Not only that, the idea is also to remove from the account of hospitalized patients those who are hospitalized “with” Covid (that is, they discovered it after hospitalization) and not “for” Covid and therefore have the symptoms.
The Fiaso report
Also because with a greater circulation of the virus after the infections that have run for at least twenty days – yesterday 47,763 new cases and 69 deaths – in the last 7 days hospitalizations have also increased by 37%, as recorded in its report on sentinel hospitals Fiaso (the Federation of Asl and hospitals). An increase, this, in line with that of 39% recorded in the previous week, but which, however, is almost completely related to the so-called patients “with” Covid, that is, who arrived at the hospital for the treatment of other diseases and found to be incidentally positive for the virus through the pre-admission swab.
Compared to the report of October 4, in fact – adds Fiaso – the share of patients hospitalized “with” Covid has grown by 64% while the increase in hospitalized “for” Covid, or those who have developed respiratory and pulmonary syndromes, is was just 6 percent. In short, the virus circulates and infects more, but it seems to do less and less damage.