Fourth week of Covid hospitalizations decreasing in hospitals. The latest detection by the sentinel network of Fiaso, relating to the first week of 2024, it marks a 22% decrease in hospitalized patients. “The decline in Covid hospitalizations is now confirmed, but the pressure on hospitals shows no sign of decreasing due to the flu“, explains the president of Fiaso, Giovanni Migliore. “Unfortunately we are seeing serious pneumonia not due to Covid but to the consequences of the flu even in intensive care. We must still be cautious because in the coming weeks we will also see the effects of the reopening of schools on hospitals”, he added.
The most significant drop (-27%) comes for those hospitalized ‘with Covid’, patients in hospital for other causes but who tested positive for coronavirus, a sign of a reduction in the viral circulation of Covid19. To a lesser extent, the decline also occurred in hospitalizations ‘for Covid’, -10% among those who occupy beds in infectious diseases or in medicines with respiratory and pulmonary syndromes related to SARS COV-2 infection. The average age of the patients is 77 years and in almost all cases they are subjects with other pathologies that aggravate the clinical picture.
The number of Covid patients hospitalized in intensive care also decreased by 27%. Their incidence on the total goes from 6 to 5.5%, in absolute terms these are few cases per hospital and here too the profile is that of patients with an average age of 70 years with other pathologies.
The data collected by the Italian Federation of Health and Hospital Companies indicate that in pediatric hospitals or in the pediatric departments of sentinel hospitals, children’s Covid hospitalizations are decreasing by 15%, there are no children in intensive care and hospitalizations continue to concentrate in the age between 0-4 years.
“In the last two weeks we have been recording an increase in hospitalizations in intensive care units for viral pneumonia not linked to Covid and since the beginning of the flu season we estimate an increase of approximately 20% for this type of hospitalizations, which are also characterized by greater severity“. The president of the Association gives an overview of the situation in Italian intensive care units Anesthesiologists Italian Hospital Resuscitators – Critical Area Emergency (Aaroi-Emac), Alessandro Vergallo: “In this phase – he explains – the flu is creating much greater pressure on hospitals than Covid-19, so much so that currently Covid pneumonia in the Intensive Care Units is a marginal number.” “At a national level – underlines Vergallo – we are recording an increase of approximately 20% in hospitalizations for non-Covid pneumonia compared to previous years. In absolute numbers this is an increase in the order of a hundred cases. And also in the ordinary departments of hospitals the flu is having a big impact.” Furthermore, warns Vergallo, “we are also seeing a significant increase in the severity of these pneumonias compared to the past. That is, the number of serious cases is greater”. The cause of the greater severity of these hospitalizations, concludes President Aaroi Emaci, “is probably also in the poor adherence to the influenza vaccination that characterized the last campaign”.
“It’s true. This year we are seeing more pneumonia, bronchopneumonia and bronchiolitis. This is due to the flu viruses which are particularly aggressive this year and the presence of other viruses, such as the respiratory syncytial virus, which can create problems especially for children under 1 year and the elderly. Then there are also bacteria, which somehow find their way paved by previous viral infections. Finally, we have Covid, which has not disappeared”, highlights Carlo Federico Pindirector of Microbiology and Immunology Diagnostics at the IRCCS Pediatric Hospital Baby Jesus in Rome and professor of Microbiology at UniCamillus and International Medical University of Rome. According to the expert, there is also another aspect contributing to the severity of the symptoms observed this year, linked “not only to the characteristics of the viruses that are circulating, but also to our immune system: we have protected ourselves for three years from Covid and from all the other respiratory pathogens and our immune system has gone to sleep a bit,” he explains. “We still suffer from a residue of this phenomenon, but we are slowly returning to normality”, he concludes.
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