Posted on 03/23/2020 8:15:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
ITALY may be fighting back in the battle against coronavirus as the nation's death toll slowed for the second day in a row, offering renewed hope.
Data revealed a drop in the rate of deaths and new infections with the number of deaths in the world's worst-affected country rising by 602 on Monday, the smallest increase for four days.
Italy's Civil Protection Agency showed 4,789 new cases on Monday, nearly 700 fewer than the day-to-day increase of 5,560 new cases reported from a day earlier.
The number of deaths followed a similar trend with 602 virus-related deaths registered on Monday compared to 651 on Sunday and 793 on Saturday.
The total number of fatalities from the month-old contagion currently stands at 6,077, while confirmed cases total 63,927.
Although fatalities have increased by 4,789 over the past 24 hours - it has been the smallest rise for five days.
The drop in the rate of deaths and new infections indicates that the curve may be finally starting to flatten out, two weeks after the entire country was placed into lockdown.
DROP IN DEATH RATE Seeing the day-to-day figures for new cases and deaths go down is a sign for some that the national lockdown is working.
Since February, Italy had been following an exponential growth curve with cases and deaths roughly doubling every three days.
The recent data offers the first evidence that lockdown measures are helping to 'flatten the curve' and ease pressure on medical services, allowing doctors to better treat patients and helping to lower the death rate.
But health authorities have cautioned that it will be a few more days before they will know if Italy is at the beginning of a positive trend.
Health Minister Roberto Speranza cautioned: "These are crucial days. Woe to whoever lets down the guard.
"Now more than ever, the commitment of everyone is needed."
A top national health official, Silvio Brusaferro, resisted being too optimistic, saying that the improvements registered Monday were due to actions taken at the beginning of the month, not in recent days.
"We need more consecutive results to confirm the trend, to be more certain that we are in a favourable situation", Brusaferro said.
"I don't feel like taking one side or the other to confirm that it is there or not. We can take note of what we see today." UK FOLLOWS SUIT The two-week gap between the start of Italy's nationwide lockdown and the slowdown in deaths and infections is significant, because analysts have said this is how long it takes social isolation measures to show up in the data.
Italy's current lockdown measures mean that people cannot leave their homes except for work, medical reasons or emergencies.
Analysts have warned that the UK - with 336 deaths - is exactly where Italy was a fortnight ago.
On Monday, the UK followed suit and Boris Johnson ordered the whole country to stay at home from Monday.
THIRD WEEK OF LOCKDOWN Italy begins its third week under a nationwide lockdown and the health system is struggling under the weight of the world's largest COVID-19 outbreak outside of China.
A government decree that took effect March 3 prohibits people from leaving their homes except to go to work, to shop for food or other necessities, to exercise or walk dogs for brief periods, or to perform essential tasks like caring for an elderly relative.
In the Lombardy region, where the outbreak began, there are even more stringent restrictions.
In Milan, the capital of Lombardy, which is by far Italys worst-hit region, regional health officials declared themselves moderately optimistic after day-to-day increases of both positive test results and of hospitalisations of new patients with COVID-19 were smaller.
But they expressed renewed worry about the urgent need for additional intensive care beds.
Lombardy health commissioner Giulio Gallera said Monday that the number of cases grew to 29,761 , a day-to-day increase of 1,555 as opposed to the one-day jump of 3,200 recorded Saturday.
The cities of Bergamo and Milan both showed signs of improvement, but the number of cases jumped significantly in Brescia, another hard-hit Lombardy city which registered 588 new cases Monday.
Maybe this is the first positive day of this very difficult month," Gallera said.
"It is not time to relax. We need to be even more coherent."
The northern region requisitioned a hotel with 300 rooms for people who need to self-quarantine and are unable to properly distance themselves from family members at home.
Lombardy's governor signed an ordinance on Saturday requiring all guests to leave hotels within 72 hours to free up the accommodations for possible use in public health emergency.
How many plain respiratory deaths are counted as Covid Now?
Good news if it holds.
They’re running outa old folks.
They are running out of people who are high enough risk to die from it?
Everyone has to know that that kind of death rate cannot keep up indefinitely.
Outstanding news, I hope and pray that trend continues.
Article confuses new deaths with new positives. The deaths are not as importat as the positives. They represent week or more old cases. If Italy can see a continued fall in new positives over the next few days that might bea sign.
It’s the Daily Sun with the page 3 girls. Don’t expect them to know anything.
LARGEST PSYOPS in world history. Should be open season on ‘rats and propagandists for the damage they have done, the anxiety, stress and destruction they have caused.
“Although fatalities have increased by 4,789 over the past 24 hours”
Good news?
Two days in a row is a very hopeful trend.
It is good seeing this scourge has limits.
It wasn’t fatalities. It was new cases. The reporters cannot read the worldometer chart. Fatalities were 601.
Italy's Civil Protection Agency showed 4,789 new cases on Monday [...]
[...] with 602 virus-related deaths registered on Monday [...]
The total number of fatalities from the month-old contagion currently stands at 6,077, while confirmed cases total 63,927. Although fatalities have increased by 4,789 over the past 24 hours - it has been the smallest rise for five days.
*****
This article is a jumble of confused figures! Some of the figures (relating to fatalities) contradict each other! It uses the same number for new fatalities AND new cases!
Regards,
Math never was a strong suit of Journ O List types. That’s why they chose that career.
Go look at the ACTUAL 2019-2010 influenza numbers. Now compare the ACTUAL DEATHS to known CIVID19 deaths that is on our TV screen all day. Why is there no panic and world lockdown for the massive annual deaths from influenza? The difference is the media . And the proof is the Democrats now trying to use thus dangerous hype to get $35 million dollars for the JFK center, etc. In the end, we will have been played for a “pandemic” no worse than influenza (a horrible pandemic actually happening, that is now annually ignored )
Actually new deaths or symptomatic cases are the the things to watch because the new testings only show the disease prevalence. There are many more disease covid negatives than covid positives and many more who may have been positive will never have been tested. Abrupt changes in the numbers needing hospital care tells us if the disease is expanding and drops seen over time show us that prevalence is dropping.. All the numbers are lagging numbers 3-14 days from catching to becoming ill with another 2-3 weaks to get over it while being contagious to others. But lagging numbers are what we are stuck with.
If the numbers of dead and newly acutely sick are starting to drop in Italy that means fewer were starting to catch it 3-14 days ago which means quarantine efforts are helping (or the disease has hit a rock in terms of those hearty souls who never would have gotten the disease at all.) and that there are less actually catching the disease now who will end up being symptomatic in the next week to 14 days.
That also means that if there are less catching the disease now who later become symptomatic(who then test positive at that point), there will be less numbers who end up needing to be hospitalized.(and then there will be less who will die...and so on until the disease prevalence(per million) spirals into nothingness).
All the numbers always lag from contraction of the disease to symptoms unless we were to invent time machines that can go back in time to see when each sufferer got the disease...
If you dramatically increase testing of the general populace now who are not symptomatic, you may catch a lot of folks with it but still many false negatives. You don’t know how many people who had it a week ago since many folks weren’t tested then and probably won’t be tested now.
Testing now only helps with diagnosis when one is actually sick or there is a question of exposure. Once we know...the protocols will then need to be followed.
Look for rises or falls of the sick or dead in terms of numbers coming into the hospitals. Look for the percentages of the dead to fall as a function of the rising numbers of completed cases(cases closed that had a determination of either recovery or death) A drop in the deaths against the rise of the recovered as determined from resolved cases tells you more if the disease is subsiding.
“but still many false negatives”
I meant to say “but still many negatives”...sorry I didn’t catch that!
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