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Covid: Battiston, with the current pace peaking in early December

2020-11-11T16:48:18.749Z


The cases will then decrease (ANSA)If the slowdown of the epidemic curve observed since the end of October were to continue, it could reach its peak at the beginning of December, with about a million cases, after which there would be a gradual slowdown: this is what emerges from the calculations performed by the physicist Roberto Battiston, of University of Trento, taking into account the effects of the measures introduced with the


If the slowdown of the epidemic curve observed since the end of October were to continue, it could reach its peak at the beginning of December, with about a million cases, after which there would be a gradual slowdown: this is what emerges from the calculations performed by the physicist Roberto Battiston, of University of Trento, taking into account the effects of the measures introduced with the latest Dpcm.



"Using the available data to calculate the growth rate - Battiston told ANSA - we can extrapolate the trend of the total number of active infected over the next few weeks. If the current trend of reduction of the growth rate is maintained , and the Dpcm of early November is expected to contribute in this sense, nationally is expected to peak in early December and then begin to decline. The number of active infected at that point could reach one million, or perhaps less. if the effects of the last Dpcm will be more marked or if total or partial closures of other regions will be added ".



In any case, he noted, "the situation must be continuously monitored for an optimal management of the country's health resources".

For Battiston "exponential growth such as that of October could not have been managed for long" and the measures envisaged in the two Dpcm of October, fortunately, seem to have obtained the effect of reversing the trend of the growth rate ", while the effects of the last Dpcm will be seen starting from November 14-15. The same considerations can be made for the individual regions, each of which shows a different dynamic.



In the meantime, the national total of cases continues to increase at a rate of 20-30,000 units per day due to an inertial trend of the epidemic: "the growth of a contagion process - he said - resembles the launch of a rocket, until the engines propel the rocket accelerates.

If the engines are turned off for a while, the rocket continues to rise until it stops and then comes back. "If the growth of cases had continued at the same pace, the cases would have already reached 1.3 million, instead of the current 590,000.

Estimation of the increase in cases if there had not been a slowdown in cases and the actual data (source: Roberto Battiston)

Estimation of infected as of November 9, 2020 if there had not been a slowdown in cases (source: Roberto Battiston)

The growth rate slows down

In the acute phase of the pandemic, last February "the growth rate reached very high values ​​and it was necessary to activate the lockdown, an action which in just over a month, in mid-April, brought the growth rate back to zero and then negative".

In fact, in mid-April the total number of positive cases reached a maximum of about 110,000, and then decreased and continued to remain negative even after the reopening on 14 June.

"Despite a slight growth - he added - it remained negative until early August and suddenly doubled shortly after the week of August, when there was the maximum concentration and movement of people throughout Italy and beyond".

In September, however, the pace of the infections "started to decline, despite the reopening of production activities: the epidemic and the restart seemed to be able to coexist, thanks to all the rules of social distancing and the meticulous tracing of outbreaks".

Trend in the total number of SarsCoV2 infections in Italy from March to November 2020 (source: Roberto Battiston)

The rally resumed in October, when "the rate started to rise very rapidly".

To understand what happened, it is first of all necessary to consider that the transmission of the virus occurs on the basis of two quantities, which must be present together: the fraction of infected people present in the population and the quantity of contacts.

"In January-February - continued the physicist - the amount of infected in the population was small, but there were many contacts because people with the virus, not being known, went everywhere. This caused a very rapid growth of the epidemic starting from a small number of cases ".

Today the situation has changed: "the growth rate is 4-5 times lower than in January-February, but we started at the end of September with tens of thousands of cases".

How did it happen?

"Most likely - he said - it was the direct and indirect effect of the reopening of schools, without having adequately organized the overall infrastructure, including transport, contact sports and social activities of young people in general".

Source: ansa

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