There are 10,386 coronavirus test positives in Italy in the last 24 hours
, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Yesterday there were 7,351.
There are 336 victims today
, yesterday there were 258. There were 274,019 tests for the coronavirus (molecular and antigenic) carried out in the last 24 hours in Italy, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Yesterday there were 179,278, about 95,000 less, then.
The positivity rate is 3.8%, compared with 4.1% yesterday
(-0.3% in 24 hours).
According to data from the Ministry of Health, there are 2,074 patients in intensive care for Covid in Italy, with a daily balance of 15 units less between entries and exits.
The daily admissions to intensive care were 154. The hospitalized with symptoms in the ordinary wards are now 18,463, with a decrease of 52 units.
The total cases since the beginning of the epidemic are now 2,739,591, the deaths 94,171.
The currently positive are 393,686 (-4,412 in the last 24 hours), the recovered and discharged are 2,251,734 (+14,444), in home isolation there are 373,149 people (-4,345)
Europe will present an accelerated procedure for the approval of vaccines adapted to the new Covid variants and a push for collaboration between manufacturers to increase supplies, both of the vaccines already authorized and those for possible new viral strains.
According to EU sources, these are the main innovations of the new strategy that the President of the European Commission
Ursula von der Leyen will
present tomorrow to face the new phase of the pandemic characterized by the risk of mutations.
The first initiative, on which the EU commissioner for health
Stella Kyriakides
has worked
, will concern an accelerated procedure for the green light to drugs already authorized and adapted to the new variants that will necessarily involve increasing sequencing and information exchange capacities between national health systems.
On the industrial side - closely followed by the EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, who together with Kyriakides leads the contact task force with the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies and Member States - Brussels is pushing for greater cooperation between the public and private sectors.
And it intends to connect several pharmaceutical companies across Europe to expand the Union's capacity and production volumes and ensure that production no longer goes down.
The
variants of the virus continue to worry about
.
"The agenda is not decided by politicians or experts: the virus decides it. Until we check it, this is the reality", said
Andrea Crisanti,
Director of Microbiology and Virology of the University of Padua, at Agorà Rai Tre , with reference to the words of Walter Ricciardi who yesterday asked for a lockdown of a few weeks to limit the spread of variants.
"You have to put your soul in peace on this thing - added Crisanti -. So Ricciardi did very well to raise the alarm on this problem because politicians, in general, even in the past, have always moved late. Always" .
For
the infectious disease specialist Massimo Galli,
speaking on the show Mattino 5, "
we all agree that we would all like to reopen, but I find myself again in a department invaded by new variants
, and this concerns all of Italy and this makes it easy to predict that soon we will have more serious problems ".
"The signs come by looking at what is happening in other European countries and the variants - he continued - The variants are there and are more contagious and therefore have greater ability to spread in situations that are not safe. It is unfortunate but it is a fact of done.
This is the reality around which it is useless to chat ".
Meanwhile,
a new circular from the Ministry of Health on rapid antigen tests in light of the circulation of the new variants of the virus
arrives
.
From the English to the Brazilian, the new variants "which have several mutations in the spike protein, should not in theory cause problems with antigen tests, as they detect the N protein".
However, "it should be kept in mind that mutations are also emerging for protein N which must be carefully monitored to evaluate the possible influence on antigenic tests that use it as a target".
"Given the suboptimal analytical sensitivity" of several rapid tests available today, "it
is advisable to confirm the negativity of antigen tests performed on symptomatic patients or with epidemiological links with confirmed cases of Covid-19
".
And "this need is reinforced by the possible circulation of viral variants with mutations in the N protein, which is the main target antigen used in this type of test", underlines the circular "Update on the use of antigenic and molecular tests for detection of SARS-CoV-2 ", which updates the indications in light of the circulation of new variants of the virus.
Furthermore, we read, "in the light of the results available in the scientific literature, it is clear that, even considering the high specificity of antigen tests, samples positive to these tests in low prevalence contexts require confirmation with a molecular test or, in case the lack of availability of such molecular tests, with a different antigen test, to eliminate the possibility of false positive results ".
With respect to the situation detected on the occasion of the issue of the circular of 8 January, the new document finally reads, "a change in the epidemiological situation was observed due to the circulation of new viral variants, which cannot be ignored".
The Councilor for Health of the Lazio Region Alessio D'Amato said that "in our region the so-called Ingelese variant has begun to appear, with a presence not as important as in other regions
. At present, attention must still be kept high. compared to the circulation of the virus, although some indicators are slightly decreasing "in Lazio.
D'Amato: "In Lazio, 18 percent of positives have the English variant"
Councilor D'Amato also explained that
in Lazio in mid-March the administration of the vaccine to prisoners and prison staff will begin
.
On Monday 22 February, however, the administration to the staff, teaching and non-teaching, of schools and universities in Lazio will start.
"We are confident to conclude the audience of teachers in six weeks", or at the beginning of April, said the councilor for health of Lazio, Alessio D'Amato.
The issue was addressed in a hearing in the regional council: "Important hubs such as the Nuvola all'Eur and the Termini station will be used, but in general all the structures - in total 27 - are active", continued the commissioner.
And 3,057,132 doses of vaccine administered in Italy this morning
, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health, out of a total of 1,289,059 people vaccinated even with the booster.
The doses distributed to the regions to date are 3,651,270 of which 83.7% administered.
There are currently three vaccines distributed in Italy: Pfizer (3,288,870), Moderna (112,800), Astrazeneca (249,600).