Coronavirus: smog and density among the risk indexes for the North

Air pollution from Pm10, winter temperature, mobility, population density and seniority, density of hospitals and population density. These are the strong correlations between the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy and its different spread in the regions of our country according to a study carried out by the University of Catania on Istat data, the Istituto Superiore della Sanità and other European agencies. The research 'Strategies to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic risk' is carried out by a team of the departments of the Etna University of Economics and Business, Electrical Engineering, Physics and Astronomy, Experimental Clinical Medicine, Mathematics and Informatics, Civil Engineering and Architecture.

"Our epidemic risk index - say the researchers - shows strong correlations with the official data available of the Covid-19 epidemic in Italy". "It explains in particular - they add - why regions such as Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont and Veneto are suffering much more than in the center-south. On the other hand these are also the same regions that usually suffer the greatest impact (in terms of serious cases and deaths) also due to seasonal influences, as revealed by the ISS data. We therefore believe that it is no coincidence that the Covid-19 pandemic spread more rapidly precisely in those regions with a higher epidemic risk such as Lombardy , Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont and Veneto ".

According to the study "in Italy, due to a very high percentage of mild asymptomatic or symptomatic" there may currently be one to ten million people who have come into contact with the virus "and a" positive impact came from the lockdown ". For the researchers, the data also "bodes well for central and southern Italy, where the impact of this pandemic and of other possible future waves will most likely be less and less in terms of serious cases and deaths due to the lower epidemic risk linked to the structural factors found. "