There is a boom in Covid infections in Italy, over 132 thousand in one day with a positive rate of over 28% and almost half a million swabs performed.
The deaths are also rising, returning to approaching the threshold of 100, exactly 94. The percentage of places in non-critical area hospital wards occupied by patients with Covid-19 rises by one point in 24 hours, returning to 12%. intensive care at 3%, notes Agenas (National Agency for Regional Health Services).
The virus runs in Italy and 200 thousand cases have been exceeded in neighboring France.
We look with apprehension at the arrival of the new variants, and among these in particular the latest one arriving from India, BA.2.75, fearing that it will increase the growth of the curves even more.
"We will deal with the fallout on hospitals"
Meanwhile, Covid vaccines available for younger people are increasing: Novavax company announced that the European Commission has approved the Extended Conditional Marketing Authorization for Nuvaxovid in adolescents in Europe between the ages of 12 and 17 years, after the positive opinion of the European Medicines Agency (Ema).
Meanwhile, we look at the new sub-variant of Omicron - BA.2.75 - reported in India last June 2, which is "apparently rapidly growing", says virologist Tom Peacock, of Imperial College London in a tweet.
There are currently no scientific publications on this newcomer of the Omicron family, but reports on the web among groups of experts, who above all reveal how this new sub-variant is a second generation, derived in turn from Omicron BA.2 but different from this one due to of nine mutations on the Spike protein, with which the virus attaches itself to human cells.
Precisely because of the latter, which probably make it more transmissible, it was preferred to distinguish it from BA, 2 "It is worth keeping an eye on," notes Peacock.
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another probable characteristic is the speed with which in the space of a month it has spread from India to Germany and Canada, up to New Zealand.
However, it is too early to draw conclusions, Peakok observes, considering that the "sequences collected so far are few".
"In Italy it has not been detected," says geneticist Massimo Zollo, coordinator of the Ceinge Covid-19 Task Force.
"It is too early to say today that the variant will become predominant: we need data that we do not have today, nor can we imagine", explains the geneticist, for whom "he was sure that new variants would arrive and that others could arrive, since there are no longer any no restrictions ".
For the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti, "it is worth keeping an eye on, but without alarm," the new sub-variant "as it could be even more contagious than Omicron 5 and have a high capacity to infect, healed people and vaccinated ".
Meanwhile, there is expectation for the arrival of updated vaccines.
According to Giorgio Palù, president of the Italian drug agency (Aifa), the bivalent mRNA updated on the BA.1 strain could "be approved" by September.
For those updated on BA.4 and 5 we should wait for the winter.
And for Palù it should be administered "to all over 60s regardless of the presence or absence of pathologies. After all, this is what is done with the flu vaccine".
(HANDLE).