Coronavirus, millions of infections in Italy and the EU

In Italy and other European countries there could be millions of people infected with Coronavirus. To estimate this, based on the mathematical analysis of data from European countries, is the Center for models of infectious diseases of Imperial College London, which collaborates with the World Health Organization.

In Italy, 5.9 million people may have contracted the SarsCoV2 virus so far, practically 9.8% of the population, while contagion containment measures would have saved about 38,000 lives. In Italy, as in other European countries, "we estimate that the recognized infections are of different orders of magnitude lower than the real ones, especially for the presence of asymptomatic subjects or with few symptoms as well as the limited ability to do tests", they write researchers.

The study is based on the mathematical analysis of data provided daily by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control of Covid-19 related deaths in 11 European countries affected by the epidemic: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

"Our results suggest that interventions such as social distancing or lockdown have already saved many lives and will continue to do so," says Axel Gandy, a statistician at the mathematics department of Imperial College.

According to his group's estimates, the restrictions implemented in the 11 European countries "will prevent 59,000 deaths by March 31. Many others will be avoided if the measures are maintained until the transmission decreases. We estimate - the researchers write - that in the 11 countries between 7 and 43 million individuals have been infected with SarsCoV2 until March 28. "

The portion of the population affected (which experts define as the 'attack rate') seems to be higher in Spain (15%) and Italy (9.8%), while it is lower in Germany (0.7% ) and Norway (0.41%).