The Chinese New Year, the first since the beginning of Covid which has seen tens of millions of Chinese move in and out of the country, officially ended on February 5th. No new threatening variants have appeared and the numbers of the pandemic continue to fall, as in Italy where the parameters that matter most – hospitalizations and deaths – are in sharp decline. So much so that the latest weekly death toll makes one think a lot about the impact of a flu which in the hardest seasons has 8-10 thousand deaths. In short, the pandemic now seems to have reached the endemic phase, i.e. coexistence with the virus, with seriously ill people and very limited deaths.
The epidemiologist Ciccozzi: “Covid has become an endemic”
«Covid is now endemic. It can be seen from all the curves, but also from the symptoms of the disease which in the vast majority of cases are very light, certainly the elderly and people with multiple pathologies must be careful exactly as they must do with normal flu syndromes “, he explains to Il Sole 24 ore Massimo Ciccozzi, Head of the Medical Statistics and Epidemiology Unit of the Campus Bio-Medico of Rome. «With Omicron the virus has reached the best condition for it and that is maximum contagiousness to be able to reproduce, but without causing serious damage to the host and that is to us. It is very difficult for a more pathogenic variant to arrive even if there can always be some surprises in science and for this reason it is always crucial to continue the surveillance of this virus which will continue to infect us several times even for years, but this should not scare us “, continues Ciccozzi who just published a study on Biorvix with other colleagues on the latest Kraken variant which had caused alarm in recent weeks. An in-depth study whose conclusions clearly explain that there is no evidence that “XBB.1.5 could become a real global threat to health“.
For Bassetti “the Chinese situation is no longer a concern”
Confirmation of the danger thwarted by the outbreak of infections in China, barring difficult surprises on the mutation of the virus, also comes from Matthew Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino polyclinic in Genoa who yesterday explained in a Facebook post that «the official and unofficial data coming from China tell us that Covid with the Omicron variant has infected 1 billion people, killing many elderly people. The wave that began in November is ending, leaving behind antibodies and immunity. The best scenario occurred: many infections, unfortunately many deaths, but no more difficult variant. With the Chinese situation no longer worrying, Covid is no longer an emergency problem today. It is a disease like many others weakened by vaccines and by the very high circulation with Omicron. After 3 years we have won our war». In short, for Bassetti it is time to “put Covid and all its rules behind us”.
The numbers are increasingly similar to those of a flu
Even the ISS weekly reports confirm a very clear trend for our country where pressure on hospitals hasn’t been recorded for several months, including winter months when it is assumed that the virus is circulating more: especially if you look at the victims in the week from 3 to 9 February there were 279 deaths from Covid which become 1558 in the last month. If we start from the fact that a flu season of 6-8 months can cause up to 10,000 deaths, the numbers of Covid and flu are starting to align. What defends us above all is the so-called hybrid immunity deriving from the fact that the vast majority of Italians are vaccinated and have been infected at least once. Even the Minister of Health Horace Schillaci he says he is optimistic: «The weekly data sent to me by the Higher Institute of Health still show a decrease in the incidence and a smaller number of hospitalized patients. This finally means – adds Schillaci – that we are definitively emerging from this pandemic that has made everyone suffer for 3 years and we can look at the future at least from this point of view with great optimism”.