24,878 new Covid cases have been registered in the last 24 hours, compared to 56,263 yesterday. But last Monday (the day when traditionally fewer tampons are processed) there were just 18,380. The swabs processed are 138,803 (yesterday 326,211) so the positivity rate rises from 17.2 to 17.9%. The dead today are 93 (yesterday 79) for a total of 162,781 since the beginning of the pandemic. This is what emerges from the daily bulletin of the Ministry of Health.
Ordinary hospitalizations become 10,050, or 155 more than yesterday, while intensive care remains 416, like yesterday, with 26 admissions a day.
Cartabellotta: “Now it’s plateau, I dare say goodbye to masks”
We are in a situation of substantial stability of Covid in Italy, for some weeks now, “a plateau with slight decreases and fluctuations”, but the circulation of the virus “is still high”. This is said by Nino Cartabellotta, president of the Gimbe Foundation: “The circulation of the virus in Italy is still very high: over 1.2 million positive cases, an average of new cases per day above 60 thousand and a positive rate of swabs that exceeds 15%. Consequently, abolishing the obligation to wear a mask from May 1st in all indoor venues and means of transport is a risky decision, because with this level of viral circulation in crowded and / or poorly ventilated rooms the probability of contagion is very high “.
To understand the situation and see a possible “Easter effect”, it will take several more days, when the normal testing activity, which in this long holiday period has had a strong slowdown, will resume normally. Only then will it be possible to fully verify the trend. But certainly a possible farewell to masks, under these conditions, for Cartabellotta, would represent a serious risk: “at the moment the orientation is to leave them on public transport and in clubs such as cinemas and theaters and take them off in restaurants where most of the time you are without “.