It is easily superimposed and lends itself to confusion, after all the symptoms are almost the same: high fever, muscle aches, sore throat. It is thought to be flu and instead it is Covid-19. The Omicron-2 variant has been circulating with greater virulence for weeks and the number of cases – despite the fact that the new positives have been decreasing for a few days – has shown it. But it also happens that, as family doctors point out, several positives get out of control due to a “delay” in diagnostics. In essence, it happens that a person with a high fever and sore throat decides on the same day that the symptoms appear to have a quick swab at the doctor, in the pharmacy or at home with the “do-it-yourself” kits. Well, the test tube gives a negative result: that patient with symptoms that can be as much attributable to the flu as to Sars-Cov-2 is not positive for Covid-19. In reality he is, but he will only find out after 36-48 hours, provided that, worried, he undergoes a new tampon.
The trend
“In these days – explains Alberto Chiriatti, regional deputy secretary of Fimmg, the Italian Federation of general practitioners – we are witnessing this phenomenon, that is, patients with symptoms cleared by Covid-19 who turned out negative in the first instance to a quick test but that instead they are positive after a second test even after 48 hours and more generally we can say that 9 cases out of 10 of those who think they have caught the flu then prove positive for coronavirus “. There is a large number of cases and this is also confirmed by pharmacists who have seen an increase in tampons in the last month. “Compared to February there is certainly a return to checks with a test growth of at least 20% – explains Alfredo Procaccini, Deputy Vice President of Federfarma – and it is also true that there is a phenomenon of false negatives but why Omicron 2 it is more difficult to find in the airways: it is deeper and therefore swabs must also be done with extreme care ». Basically, the new variant is more difficult to find and does not appear immediately at the onset of the first symptoms. “The worrying data – concludes Chiriatti – is that a false negative believes he has the flu and if he does not concern himself and does not undergo further checks, he risks infecting neighbors, family members and colleagues since we have seen the high transmissibility of the virus in Omicron 2”.
The day
Yesterday the cases in Lazio had dropped: 4,418, almost 3 thousand less than the previous day but over the weekend the decline is physiological also due to the lower number of tampons processed. On the other hand, ordinary hospitalizations rose, totaling 1,158 (21 more on Sunday). It is not just about new entries but also about transfers of patients from one department to the Covid one.
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