The week of Christmas saw a surge of more than 80% of new Covid-19 cases, a growth of 20.4% in hospitalized with symptoms and 13% of people in intensive care. Deaths also increased: from 22 to 28 December there were 1,024, with an average of 146 per day compared to 126 in the previous 7 days (+ 16%). This was revealed by the monitoring of the Gimbe Foundation.
“For 2 and a half months – explains the president Nino Cartabellotta – there has been an increase in new cases, which in the last week has undergone a surge, exceeding 320 thousand, both for the increased viral circulation and for the increase the number of pads “.
In the week from 22 to 28 December it is noted an increase in new infections in all regions, with the exception of the autonomous province of Bolzano and ranging from 9.6% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia to 257.6% in Umbria. While in 45 provinces there are over 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The Gimbe Foundation highlights how “the testing system is already haywire, there are too many false negatives in antigenic swabs and with the emergence of a huge number of cases there is a risk of a de facto lockdown, regardless of the modification of the quarantine rules “.
As of December 29, 81.4% of the population (48.2 million) had received at least one dose of the vaccine or 234,253 more people than the previous week, and 78.1% (46 million) had completed the cycle. But the unvaccinated are 9.4 million of which 2.3 are over 50 and 3.4 million between 5-11 years. While the coverage of third doses is 58.9% with significant regional differences. The slowdown in public holidays has reduced the number of administrations between 20 and 26 December, in particular the number of new vaccinated people over 12 collapses (-47.5% compared to the previous week).
For the past two weeks the number of total tampons went from 3,750,804 on 8-14 December to 5,175,977 December 22-28 (+ 38%), both due to the increase in both rapid (+ 38.7%) and molecular (+ 36.3%) buffers.
Gimbe warns: “The no-rules buffer rush overloads the testing system, preventing those who really need it from being tested with adequate times “; moreover, the unregulated use of rapid tampons by asymptomatic subjects contributes to feeding false certainties, given the 30-50% of false negatives. Finally, it favors the expansion of the market black”.