The number of vaccinated people is growing, the epidemic data is decreasing. And with the improvement of the scenario, Prime Minister Draghi is studying gradual reopening. The postponement of the curfew (at 11pm or midnight) and the reopening of shopping centers on the weekend should actually be postponed to next week, after the results of the latest infection monitoring. But in the meantime we are working on modifying the parameters that determine the color change of the Regions.
Towards the change of parameters
The working group for the identification of new parameters, promoted by the Ministry of Health, which also includes the Regions, the ISS and the Scientific Committee, is currently finalizing its evaluations. A meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 12 May between the Minister of Regional Affairs Mariastella Gelmini, Roberto Speranza and the Regions, which should approve the request of the latter to take the transmissibility index Rt into lesser consideration for the attribution of colors. (the value indicates the number of people who can be infected by an infected individual) and to increase the weight of the so-called hospital RT, linked to the trend of hospitalizations of Covid patients in intensive care or in other departments.
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The fears of the Regions
The nightmare for the governors of the Region, in fact, is that of being forced to close bars and restaurants and maybe even the shops in the middle of summer due to a sudden surge in RT above 1 (orange scenario) or 1.25 ( scenery from red). And this is due to a sudden multiplication of infections which, however, could have little effect on hospitals since with vaccinations already in progress in the summer among the over 50s, severe forms and hospitalizations will be much less. And the Undersecretary of Health Andrea Costa agrees: «It would be a mistake – he explains – not to rebalance the weight of the RT with the use of other parameters. Among the hypotheses that are being evaluated there are, for example, that of the hospital RT and that of the index linked to vaccination: based on the numbers we are obtaining with the vaccination plan, we could link certain reopenings to the number of inoculated doses and to the percentage immunization of certain age groups, I am thinking of the over 80, 70, 60, the guests of the RSA, the frail. In short, the most vulnerable groups “
How is the Rt
Meanwhile, the data from the latest monitoring signal an increase in the transmissibility index Rt, which stands at 0.89, always below the unit’s alert threshold. RT detects the share of symptomatic cases. It is, in fact, an indicator that tells us how much the pandemic is accelerating – or decelerating -. When Rt is below 1 we know that we are in a phase of deceleration and we can predict that the number of total cases will decrease. The criterion adopted by the ISS to calculate the RT is based on the count of positive symptomatic cases by comparing them with those of the previous week.