The 32 provinces in which the Covid-19 epidemic ran fastest in Italy at the end of 2021 cross Italy from North to South almost seamlessly: from Lecco to Enna, they are the ones where the increase in cases doubled in a smaller number of days and could therefore coincide with the provinces where Omicron spread the most in the last weeks of last year: this is indicated by the analysis of the mathematician Giovanni Sebastiani, of the Institute for Calculation Applications' M. Picon ', of the National Research Council (Cnr).
"From the analysis of the curves of the incidence of positives in the 107 Italian provinces in the three-week period ending on January 2, 2022, an exponential growth (modulated by a periodic weekly component) results with times of doubling of the increases that have frequency maximum at 4.5 days. The provinces with doubling times less than or equal to 4.5 days are 32 ", notes the mathematician. "Excluding Rimini, Vibo Valentia and Enna, they are concentrated - he continues - in three blocks of contiguous provinces": one made up of the four Lombard provinces of Lecco, Bergamo, Monza and Brianza and Cremona; Parma in Emilia Romagna; all the Tuscan provinces except Grosseto and the two Umbrians. "This group - Sebastiani observes - is almost contiguous to the second, made up of all the Abruzzo provinces,the two Molise and the three bells of Caserta, Avellino and Benevento. The second group is almost contiguous to the third, made up of the four Apulian provinces of Barletta-Andria-Trani, Bari, Taranto and Lecce ".
According to the expert, "given that these 32 provinces have low doubling time values, it is reasonable to assume that in them the Omicron variant is significantly represented (more than in the others), characterized by greater diffusivity compared to the Delta variant, prevalent in recent months ".
It should also be emphasized, adds Sebastiani, that "Tuscany has nine out of ten provinces involved, and since it has the highest vaccination coverage (79%) among the Italian regions and autonomous provinces, the importance of administering the third dose for limiting the spread of this variant. The contiguity characteristic of the provinces within each of the three blocks, which are also almost connected to each other, suggests the opportunity to limit the flow of people, at least between the different regions ".
Here is the list of the 32 provinces where in the last weeks of 2021 the cases increased exponentially with the lowest values of the doubling times (in days) of the increases:
Chieti (1.3), Isernia (2.3), Vibo Valentia (2.8), Pescara (2.9), Prato and Pisa (3), Campobasso and Barletta-Andria-Trani (3.1), Florence (3.2), Pistoia (3.3), Lucca (3.4), Lecce and L'Aquila (3.6), Avellino (3.7), Teramo and Siena (3.8), Taranto, Arezzo and Massa Carrara (3.9), Lecco, Enna and Bari (4), Parma (4.1), Bergamo and Terni (4.2), Livorno, Rimini and Caserta (4.3), Cremona, Perugia, Benevento , Monza and Brianza (4.5).