According to WHO-Europe, our country has the highest death rate per million inhabitants -.
The continuously decreasing curves of both hospitalized patients and new cases of positivity to Sars-CoV-2 do not make us forget that Covid-19 will still be part of our daily life, and will pose some challenges: first of all in view of the next elections, but above all in the school and work sectors. However, the experts also ask to clarify a fact that continues to put Italy at the bottom of the rankings, at least in Europe: that of mortality from Covid-19.
Yesterday 10,418 new infections from Covid were recorded, according to the Ministry of Health. There were 75 deaths, and both the currently positive people (-11,733) and the number of people admitted to intensive care (-7) are decreasing, while in the ordinary wards they have increased (+74). The theme – not new – of the high number of deaths in our country was taken up in recent days by the virologist Roberto Burioni (San Raffaele hospital in Milan), also complaining about the poor prescription of the antiviral Paxlovid compared to the useless (for Covid) azithromycin. In fact, comparing the data of the European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) it turns out that Italy is at the bottom of the ranking among some large Western countries: in fact, the raw data of deaths per million inhabitants say 1,761 in Germany, 2,280 in France, 2,368 in Spain, 2,754 in the UK and 2,929 in Italy.
Even Sweden, often criticized for its not very “restrictive” policies, has a better figure: 1,905 deaths per million inhabitants. «I would also like some precise data – observes the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti (San Martino hospital in Genoa) -. This is why I would be in favor of a medical investigation commission to ascertain how many of the recent deaths have occurred due to Covid and how many are of people, positive for the swab, but who died for a completely different cause “.
Adding: “I have been saying this for some time: either we count the deaths badly, and in my opinion it is the most probable explanation, because if you enter with Covid, even when you die you remain in that cauldron, or, less likely for me, they are badly treated : antivirals are not given when needed, too many antibiotics are given ». Agree Walter Ricciardi (Professor of Hygiene at the Catholic University of Rome and advisor to the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza): «We die more than Covid and we need to investigate the reasons: I would be in favor of an investigation. Various aspects need to be analyzed and it is not possible, at the moment, to give a certain answer ». And he adds: «We should see where we die the most. We also have many frailties and many of these have not taken the fourth dose, many not even the third ».
According to Giovanni Maga (director of the CNR Institute of Molecular Genetics) a comparison between states is not easy «because not all nations register deaths in the same way. The current data, however, indicate that the death rate in Italy is practically identical to that of the United Kingdom, slightly higher than that observed in Spain and France, significantly higher than in Germany, but significantly lower than the US average ” . But he specifies that «in Italy, as in most European countries, all the people who died with a positivity to the virus are cataloged as deaths related to Covid-19. Not all of these cases are actually attributable to a direct effect of Sars-CoV2, at times it could have been unfortunate outcomes due to the natural course of previous pathologies “.
As for the upcoming elections, the virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco (University of Milan) calls for “ways to allow everyone to vote”, including positives, while the epidemiologist Massimo Ciccozzi (Rome Biomedical Campus) asks to make “the mask compulsory at the polls”. Chapter school, with unvaccinated teachers who return to class: according to the infectious disease specialist Massimo Galli (formerly at the Sacco hospital in Milan) “they are at risk”.