Coronavirus: Italy is on the verge of health …

The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte insisted in the last hours on the need to avoid total containment in the country to stop the advance of the new wave of coronavirus, despite the advance of the disease, which has worrying effects on the health system. According to the Regional Health Services Agency (Agenas), 52% of patients admitted to hospitals in Italy are infected with Covid-19As a result, the estimated “critical” threshold of 40% has already been significantly exceeded.

The peninsula surpassed one million coronavirus cases on Wednesday since February, when the national emergency began. The effect on the health system was not long in coming. Dr Walter Ricciardi, adviser to the Ministry of Health, pointed out that thn hospitals “the situation is getting worse” and he acknowledged that “there are already centers that refuse assistance and interventions to cardiovascular or cancer patients and at the same time they do not take good care of patients with Covid “.

Riccardi He said that “in some emergency areas there are scenes of war and in others not”He added that “now the situation is worse than in the first wave, as we are approaching colds and flu”.

According to a newspaper analysis The Republic, new infections rose 25 percent last week compared to 50 percent the previous seven days and a similar phenomenon occurs in hospitalizations.

According to the report, “between November 4 and yesterday, infections were 235,660, compared to 195,068 the previous seven days. The increase is 25.6% while the previous one was 49.7%. ”

The increase in hospitalizations is also slowing and this Tuesday, 2,971 were hospitalized in intensive care, against 2,225 on November 2, an increase of 33.5% against 57.8% the previous week. As for the deaths, which reached a total of 42,330 yesterday, they were 2,918 in one week, while in the previous one they were 1,712, with an increase of 71%, comparable to the previous week, which was 72.4 %. , since 995 people have died.

Steps to take before infections escalate

The president of the National Federation of Doctors of Italy, Filippo Anelli, has warned that while the contagion curve continues to increase, further restrictive measures will be necessary by the government, but ruled out that for the moment the country could be confined again as in the spring. He said that at most “all regions will become a red zone”, the maximum level of risk established by the executive, but in these zones factories have not been closed and activities such as hairdressers have not been closed. were not interrupted, which happened. in spring.

Moreover, he indicated that in recent days there are between 100 and 120 patients on average admitted to the intensive care unit each dayIn this sense, Conte affirmed that “a national plan is in preparation to guarantee the safety and the distribution of the future vaccine”.

A dark prospect

This Wednesday, 32,961 new infected and 623 deaths were added, the worst figure since April 6 when there were 636 deaths, according to data from the Ministry of Health. Most of the infections come from the northern Lombardy region, which reported 8,180 cases and was the most affected area during the April wave.

Eleven regions are above this level, in addition to Lombardy, include Campania, Piedmont and Lazio, where Rome is located.

As of Wednesday, five other regions are in the “orange zone”, with more restrictions, due to their high levels of contagion: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Liguria, Tuscany and Umbria, which join Puglia and Sicily. In the “orange zone”, restaurants and bars are closed all day, for the moment the shops remain open and traffic is authorized within a municipality, but without leaving the city of residence. The autonomous province of Bolzano became a “red zone”, along with Lombardy, Piedmont, Calabria and Valle d’Aosta, which were already under this classification.

Before this panorama, Conte claimed that work is underway to avoid containment at the national level. Regarding the news that on November 15 the government will approve a new decree to apply a containment, softer than that of March but at the national level, the Prime Minister assured that he “works to avoid the closure of the entire national territory “.