In the last 24 hours in Italy there were 69,278 new positives, down from yesterday when they were 88,173. There were 150 new victims. A fairly significant drop if we consider that last Tuesday there were 99,000 new cases.
The positivity rate, out of 461,448 swabs carried out, is stable at 15%. And both intensive care (-5) and hospitalizations (-82) are decreasing. There are still more than 10,000 hospitalized with symptoms while those in intensive care are under control, under 500.
The number of people who have contracted Covid since the beginning of the pandemic exceeds 15 million, more than one in four Italians
Hope: “Antivirals prescribed by general practitioners”
“The CTS of Aifa just yesterday began working in the direction of allowing more direct access to antivirals through general practitioners. Antivirals are important” This is what Minister Speranza declared in the Chamber. “Antivirals – she added – do not replace vaccines which remain the decisive tool in the fight against Covid”. Molnupiravir and Paxlovid are drugs in use in Italy since February and as of March 30, 5,171 treatments of Paxlovid have been administered, + 31% in the week of March 17-23. If we are in a different phase it is thanks to science with safe vaccines and drugs “.
WHO, in 7 days – 16% new cases in the world
After the increase observed during the first half of March 2022, the number of new Covid-19 cases globally decreased for the second consecutive week, with a decrease of 16% during the week of March 28 to April 3, 2022 compared to to the previous week. This was revealed by the latest weekly update published by the World Health Organization (Weekly epidemiological update on Covid-19), which highlights how over 9 million new cases have been reported in the six regions and all regions show decreasing trends. The number of new weekly deaths from Covid, in the same period of time, was about 26,000 and it was drastically decreased (-43%) compared to the previous week, during which an artificial peak in deaths was observed due to a recount in some regions.
Omicron 2 most widespread variant, exceeded 90%
Omicron BA.2 has definitively supplanted Omicron 1 and is now responsible for over 90% of Covid infections worldwide. Thus in the latest WHO bulletin which dedicates a section to variants. In particular Omicron BA.2, in the last week of March is in 93.6% of the samples deposited on Gisaid, the open database of the genetic sequences of the virus; 4.8 are BA.1.1 while the ‘old’ Omicron 1 now counts just 0.94% of the samples. For Xe, early estimates suggest it has a 10% advantage in transmissibility over BA.2, but “the discovery requires further confirmation”.