There are 23,438 new ones covid contagion recorded in the last 24 hours, according to data from the Ministry of Health. Yesterday the infected were 25,389. The victims are 84, down from 112 yesterday. The swabs made are 154,143. The rate is 15.2%, a slight increase from yesterday which was 14.6%.
There are 234 patients admitted to intensive care (-5), while the daily admissions are 21. The hospitalized in the ordinary wards are instead 6,004, 166 fewer in the last 24 hours. The current positives are 711,312, 16,500 less than yesterday. Discharged and healed are 20,858,626 (+39.851) while the total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic is 21,745,065 and that of deaths is 175,127.
One million deaths worldwide since January
This week the quota of one million deaths from Covid-19 worldwide since January. This was stated by the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, during the WHO press conference. “We have the means to prevent” these deaths and “we ask governments to vaccinate citizens and workers,” she added. To date, warned Ghebreyesus, still “a third of the world population is not vaccinated and three quarters of the elderly in the poorest countries are not”.
Paxlovid effective against Omicron
Paxlovid antiviral is also effective against Omicron. The drug reduces the risk of death by 80 percent and hospitalization by 70 percent Covid-19 in patients “over 65”, according to an Israeli study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine. No particular advantage, however, was observed in the younger ones treated with Paxlovid.
In the absence of data on the effects of Pfizer antiviral during the Omicron wave, the researchers set themselves the goal of verifying whether the efficacy is the same now well demonstrated against Delta in people at high risk of developing severe disease.
Drawing on data from Clalit Health Services, the study considered 3,902 people who received the drug between January and late March 2022, when the Omicron variant was dominant in Israel and levels of immunity in the population rising from vaccinations or previous infections. Among patients over 65 who received Paxlovid, there were only 11 hospitalizations compared to 766 in untreated positives, with a rate of 14.7 hospitalizations per 100,000 people per day compared to 58.9. In the 40-64 age group, the researchers did not find a significant difference in hospitalizations related to the use of Paxlovid: in this case the hospitalization rates were 15.2 cases per 100,000 among treated patients and 15.8 among those who did not take the antiviral based on Nirmatrelvir and Ritonavir.
Occupied ICUs are stable
The percentage of intensive care units occupied by patients Covid, in the last 24 hours in Italy, it is stable at 3 per cent (a year ago it was at 6 per cent), but registers a decline in five regions: Basilicata (0 per cent), Calabria (4 per cent), Emilia Romagna ( 3 percent), Puglia (4 percent), Umbria (2 percent). The percentage of beds occupied for Covid-19 in the ordinary departments it is stable at 10 per cent (a year ago it was 7 per cent) and, within 24 hours, it decreases in eight regions or autonomous provinces: Friuli Venezia Giulia (14 per cent), Lazio (10 percent), Liguria (18 percent), Pa Trento (14 percent), Puglia (10 percent), Sardinia (7 percent), Tuscany (6 percent), Umbria (23 percent). This is the survey by the National Agency for Regional Health Services (Agenas) on the data of 24 August.
Useless masks in sports
“The use of masks in sports practice it is useless “. To say it is the study”Covid-19 and sporting activities at a young age “, proposed by the Ieo-European Institute of Oncology of Milan in collaboration with Uisp-Unione italiana sport per tutti Lombardia and recently published in the magazine Int J Environ Res Public Health. The study showed that the masks used during sports have no impact on the spread of Sars-CoV-2.
These results can be explained by the fact that the mask used can get wet or dirty, possibly increasing the proliferation of fungal and bacterial colonies, as also observed in a recent study published in Scientific Report, a journal of the Nature group. “For this theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics has advised against the use of masks during sports “.