LOOSEN the anti-Covid containment measures? The results would be dramatic and immediate: the vaccination campaign, however rapid, would not be able to avoid another 50,000 deaths that would rise to 90,000 if the campaign were slower. Numbers that would be more than halved if the timing of containment measures were optimized. This is the result of the study published in the scientific journal “Nature Medicine”, a work resulting from a collaboration between professionals from the San Matteo Polyclinic of Pavia, the University of Pavia, the University of Trento, the University of Udine and the Polytechnic of Milan.
The Italian study
The study bears the signature of young researchers, engineers and clinicians, such as Marta Colaneri, Alessandro Di Filippo, Paolo Sacchi and Raffaele Bruno del San Matteo; the latter also lecturer at the University of Pavia as Giuseppe De Nicolao; Giulia Giordano of the University of Trento; Franco Blanchini of the University of Udine; Paolo Bolzern and Patrizio Colaneri of the Milan Polytechnic. Already at the beginning of the pandemic, some of these researchers had used a mathematical model to predict the evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic and provide a tool that would allow to evaluate the different strategies to be adopted to contain the spread of the infection; including social distancing, testing and contact traceability.
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The mathematical model
After the second pandemic wave again hit Italy severely with a high mortality rate, the model evaluating was expanded to predict the impact of the vaccination campaign on the future evolution of the epidemic, taking into account the different containment measures that they impose precautions and rules of social distancing (NPI-Non Pharmacological Interventions) and of the new variants of Sars-CoV-2 (the so-called variants of concern).
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To quantitatively evaluate the possible scenarios, the previous epidemiological model published in Nature Medicine in April 2020 was completed with a new health cost model that was calibrated on the second wave data and takes into account the lethality of the disease in subjects not yet vaccinated. .
“Even if mass vaccination has begun, it is crucial to maintain containment measures until sufficient population immunity is achieved. This, in part, is due to the circulation of highly transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2. -. The future evolution of the epidemic will depend on the measures actually taken and the speed of vaccination, as well as on the possible appearance of other variants “.
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“Inevitable deaths”
In particular, the article estimates that if containment measures were eased immediately, the vaccination campaign, however rapid, would not be able to avoid another 50,000 deaths that would rise to 90,000 if the vaccination campaign were slower. These numbers would be more than halved if the timing of containment measures were optimized.
“Our results – conclude the authors of the study – also show the effectiveness of the preventive action: when closing / opening intervals alternate, if, instead of starting with an opening period, one started with a closing period, They would save tens of thousands of lives and drastically reduce health care costs. Since it is only a question of swapping the order of the closing and opening periods and not their duration, these savings would occur without any increase in socio-economic costs “.
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