Massimo Clementi , director of the Microbiology Laboratory of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy, and one of the top Italian experts in the front line of the pandemic in his country, assures that " the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 today is up to a hundred times lower than in March . "
This conclusion comes after an investigation compared the coronavirus concentration of 100 patients admitted to the hospital in the first days of March with that of 100 patients who arrived at the end of May .
"The amount of virus present in the patients that have come to us from May is enormously lower compared to those who entered in March," Corriere della Sera said in an interview with II.
This phenomenon, according to the expert, does not occur only in his country but practically throughout the world, including in areas such as Florida, in the United States, "where confinement has been much milder than in Spain or Italy." "Someone has said that it is as if the virus has aged, " he said.
Clementi also revealed that the difference manifests itself in patients of all ages, including those over 65.
"There are no longer patients who need to immediately enter the ICU and assisted breathing. In the last few weeks, few patients have come, all with mild symptoms," he explained.
To reach this result, the Italian virologist explained that nucleic acids are measured to determine the amount of virus present in a patient, in this case the SARS-CoV-2 RNA, the copies of the virus that can be detected in the rhinopharynx. of the patient.
"Compared to AIDS research, the biological sample obtained from swabs may be less accurate than the blood sample, but in our study we analyzed 200 cases and the result was unequivocal: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March and those in May, "he explained.
According to his statements to El Mundo , this difference is not due to a mutation, but rather as if there was an "adaptation" to the new host, which is us humans.
Likewise, Clementi commented that this can be a very positive fact, since it is possible that in the case of a new wave "the virus is much less aggressive."
" It has nothing to do with herd immunity . The weakness of the virus is somewhat independent of the fact that immunity can develop against it. It is an adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 to humans," he said.
Meanwhile, the Italian says he is more concerned with a new epidemic from a new virus than the evolution of the current pandemic "destined to die down."
"No one can know for sure if there will be a new wave of contagion, we feared it with SARS but it has not happened and, on the contrary, the virus has disappeared. As for SARS-CoV-2, there may be local outbreaks and How we react will be decisive, isolating them, identifying contacts and entrusting patients to local medicine so that they leave the hospitals only in the event of serious cases, "added Clementi.
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