The weekly monitoring of the Gimbe foundation on 22-28 December captures an increase in new cases in all regions except the province of Bolzano. In 45 provinces there are over 500 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants. Land unvaccinated people are 9.44 million: among these 2.34 million over 50s and 3.42 million in the 5-11 age group, where 93,771 administrations are recorded.
For third doses the coverage rate is 58.9% with relevant regional differences.
The side effects of the tampon run
The reflections of the president of the Foundation, Nino Cartabellotta: “The primary objective is to contain the overload of the hospitals by pushing to the maximum on vaccination coverage and recalls and to limit the circulation of the virus with masks and spacing. The rush for tampons without rules, in fact, has several ‘side effects’: first of all, it overloads the testing system of molecular swabs, preventing the timely testing of those who really need it because they are symptomatic or contact with a subject at risk. Secondly, the unregulated use of rapid tampons by asymptomatic subjects contributes to false security, given the 30-50% probability of false negatives. Again, – continues Cartabellotta – regardless of the review of the duration of the quarantine, the emergence of such a large number of cases risks paralyzing the country with a de facto lockdown, however, fueling a distorted narrative dominated by the high-sounding data of the infections and not by their real impact on hospitalizations, intensive care and deaths, as well as other health outcomes not dependent on COVID-19 “.
Here is the detail of the weekly monitoring
Deaths
Deaths are growing: 1,024 in the last 7 days (of which 36 referring to previous periods), with an average of 146 per day compared to 126 in the previous week.
New cases
“For two and a half months – declares Nino Cartabellotta, President of the Gimbe Foundation – there has been an increase in new cases, which in the last week has undergone a further surge, exceeding 320 thousand, both for the increased viral circulation and for the increase in the number of swabs “. In detail: the 7-day moving average of new cases jumped from 27,199 on 22 December to 45,753 on 28 December (+ 68.2%) and the positive / persons tested ratio reached 37.8%, indicating that in the absence of the drop in tampons on holidays, the number of new cases would be even greater
In the week 22-28 December 2021 in all Regions, with the exception of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, there was a percentage increase in new cases: from 9.6% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia to 257.6% in Umbria In 45 Provinces the incidence exceeds 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants with Milan in the lead (1,243), followed gradually by Lodi (1,158), Monza and Brianza (1,023), Varese (907), Perugia (896), Pavia (891).
Chaos tampons
The Foundation notes that the testing system is now haywire due to too many false negatives of the antigenic swabs and warns of the risk of a de facto lockdown regardless of the modification of the quarantine rules, with the emergence of a huge number of cases and unhooked from the modification of the quarantine rules.
In the last two weeks, the number of total tampons went from 3,750,804 in the week of December 8-14 to 5,175,977 in the week of December 22-28 (+ 38%), due to the increase in both rapid tampons (+1,018,733 ; + 38.7%) and molecular ones (+406.440; + 36.3%).
The increased testing activity, however, is only one of the determinants of the growth of new cases. “These data – comments the President – show a significant increase in viral circulation both due to the progressive expansion of the very contagious Omicron variant, and to the increase in social contacts during the holiday period, whose impact on hospitalizations and deaths will be visible in the next weeks”.
Admissions
There is a significant reduction in the percentage of patients hospitalized in the medical area and in intensive care out of the total of currently positive ones, which results from various factors: identification of a greater number of cases, increase in vaccination coverage and third doses, increase in the number of people recovered and a high number of cases in the 0-11 range, less prone to severe forms of the disease. Furthermore, in the next few weeks, the possible lower virulence of the omicron variant will also be evaluated. In particular, in the last 14 days for the medical area the 7-day moving average fell from 2.42% on December 14 to 1.87% on December 28 and for intensive care from 0.30% on December 14. at 0.22% on December 28.
“On the hospital front – says Renata Gili, Head of Research on Health Services of the GIMBE Foundation – the number of beds occupied by COVID patients is still increasing: compared to the previous week, + 20.4% in the medical area and + 13.1% in intensive care” . At the national level, as of December 28, the employment rate by COVID patients was 15.9% in the medical area and 12.6% in the critical area, with significant regional differences: the Autonomous Province of Trento exceeds the threshold of 15% in the medical area (17.8%) and 20% in the critical area (25.6%); the thresholds of 15% for the medical area and 10% for the critical area are both exceeded in Calabria (28.3% medical area and 12.8% critical area), Friuli Venezia Giulia (22.2% medical area and 14.9% critical area), Lazio (16% medical area and 14.3% critical area), Liguria (28.8% medical area and 18.7% critical area), Lombardy (16.2% medical area and 12.6% critical area), Market (21.6% medical area and 16.7% critical area), Autonomous Province of Bolzano (17.4% medical area and 18% critical area), Piedmont (19.2% medical area and 14.6% critical area), Sicily (18.7% medical area and 10.2% critical area) e Veneto (17.5% medical area and 16.5% critical area).
Vaccines, collapse for the over 12s
In the week of December 20-26, the number of new vaccinated people fell to 201,180 (-27%) compared to the 275,641 of the previous week: however, compared to 93,771 new vaccinated in the 5-11 age group, the number of over 12s collapsed.
Vaccines, the covers
Coverage with at least one dose of vaccine is highly variable in the different age groups (from 97.8% of the over 80s to 6.3% of the 5-11 group), as well as in terms of recalls, which in the over 80s have reached 72.5%, in the 70-79 age group 57.9% and in the 60-69 age group 48.3%.
According to the official audience (n. 31,001,107) the national coverage rate for the third doses is 58.9% with clear regional differences: from 45.2% of Sicily to 68% of the Autonomous Province of Trento and Valle D’Aosta.