E' too early for phase 2: there is a risk of a second wave of infections in Italy. This is one of the conclusions that emerged from a study conducted by the Chinese General Hospital in Beijing (PLA) which aimed to understand why infections and deaths from Covid-19 were higher in Italy than in the province of Hunan. The answer, published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, would be, according to the researchers, in the different methods of a government intervention that should be timely and rigorous.
“Although the two areas (Hunan province and Italy) have a similar population of about 60-70 million people, the spread of the virus has occurred in a markedly different way: the Italian peninsula is the third most affected area and in terms of the number of deaths it is second only to the United States, while in Hunan just over a thousand cases have been confirmed,” according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University. To explain why, the Chinese researchers modified the SIR, a standard mathematical model. In this way they mapped the different effects depending on the prevention measures adopted in the various areas.
“It is important to underline that in real situations the transmission rate can be influenced by different factors, such as personal protection, social isolation and city lockdowns,” comments Wangping Jia of the PLA in Beijing, lead author of the paper. “According to the extended SIR model, there should be 3.369 total cases in Hunan, and zero infections would have occurred on March 3, while in Italy there would be around 182.051 expected infections, with an epidemic end date around August 6. The reasons for this disparity could be due to different factors, first of all the lack of timeliness in the implementation of prevention measures in Italy,” explain the researchers.
“The Italian government has announced that quarantine measures will be relaxed from May 4, three months earlier than the SIR model recommends. We believe that this is too early,” Jia says, adding that there is a chance of a second wave of infections, given that the country has not yet emerged from the epidemic period. “Of course, there are limitations in our study, first of all, given the limited number of tests, the number of infections in Italy could be higher than the official one. Furthermore, the model does not take into account the incubation period of the disease, which could make it less accurate. But what we want to emphasize is the importance of preventive measures, which must be implemented as soon as possible by the government. This can significantly reduce the number of infections,” the authors conclude.
Article published on May 5, 2020 - 07:05 pm
