Coronavirus, 8 million Italians may have already had Covid-19

25% of the Italian population, or 15 million people, reported Covid-19 symptoms between 7 March and 4 May and of these 8 million people may have had the disease , because similar symptoms could be due to others flu forms. This is indicated by three Doxa surveys conducted on the national territory on the symptoms related to Covid-19 and coordinated by the State University of Milan. The results are published on the Scienza in rete website of the 2003 Group for scientific research.

"Even assuming that only half of the subjects who reported symptoms were affected by Covid-19, about 8 million Italians, including 2 million in Lombardy, would have had contact with the virus. To this should be added the asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic" he says ANSA Carlo La Vecchia, epidemiologist of the State University of Milan.

Official figures on covid-19 contagions for experts are uncertain and largely underestimated. To estimate the number of possible cases, three Doxa surveys were conducted, interviewing 1,000 individuals, aged between 18 and 85 years for each. Of these, about 175 in each survey were residents in Lombardy. The questions concerned the symptoms related to Covid-19 (fever, headache, cold, cough, gastrointestinal complaints). It emerged that in the period from March 13 to April 7 in Italy 13.9% of the subjects had reported symptoms of the Covid-19 type. In Lombardy the percentages rose to 20.7%.

In the period between 10 April and 4 May, the percentage of people who reported symptoms similar to those of Covid-19 dropped to 8.3% in Italy, but was still 13.3% in Lombardy.

The fact that the proportion with symptoms remained well over 10% in Lombardy indicates, according to experts, that a relevant proportion of these symptoms is actually attributable to Covid-19 and not to seasonal flu residues or other virosis, less frequent to late March-April. Even assuming that only half of the reported symptoms are attributable to Covid-19, the third survey confirms that about 4% of the population in Italy and 6-7% in Lombardy would have been affected by Covid-19 also in the second half of April . Considering that some of these data overlap, it emerges that in the whole period considered about 25% of Italians had the symptoms of Covid 19. Pending new serological investigation campaigns, the data confirm, according to the experts of the Staale di Milano , which, even ignoring asymptomatic cases, the Covid-19 epidemic affected a substantial part of the Italian population and even more Lombard in March and also in April, much higher than the officially registered Covid-19 infections. (HANDLE).