All the contradictions of the latest anti Covid Prime Ministerial Decree. Gimbe Report
"The extent of the restrictions decided by the government contrasts with the failure to strengthen the territorial services responsible for tracking, despite the resources already assigned by the Relaunch decree". The analysis by Nino Cartabellotta, president of the Gimbe Foundation
The infections have started to rise again and the Government has decided to tighten the belt again. New rules, new restrictions and new methods of testing & tracing (no double buffer to be declared positive and implementation of rapid swabs), as per the new Dpcm and the latest circular of the Ministry of Health " Prevention and response to COVID-19: evolution of strategy and planning in the transition phase for the autumn-winter period ". But all this is not enough. In fact, according to the Gimbe foundation, testing policies are still inadequate.
Let's go step by step.
THE GIMBE FOUNDATION COMPLAINT
“Considering that the numbers reflect social behavior and containment actions relating to 2-3 weeks prior, the effects of the restrictive measures of the new Dpcm cannot be immediate”, underlined the president of the Gimbe Foundation, Nino Cartabellotta. “In any case, the extent of the restrictions contrasts with the failure to strengthen the territorial services responsible for tracking, despite the resources already assigned by the Relaunch Decree. Once again, bureaucratic delays and conflicts between the Government and the Regions place the responsibility for epidemic control on citizens through restrictions on personal freedoms ”, added Cartabellotta.
INADEQUATE PADS AVAILABILITY
For Cartabellotta, in fact, the Government has taken steps to increase the testing & tracing capacity, but "the increased availability of molecular and rapid swabs is still inadequate both for the exponential growth of new cases, and because it will be partly absorbed by the diagnosis difference between Sars-Cov-2 infection and seasonal flu ".
We are a long way off, the Gimbe foundation specifies, from the numbers of the so-called “Chrysantis Plan” drawn up last summer in which at least 300,000 tampons a day were expected. The foundation "feels the civic duty to analyze numbers and dynamics that indicate the insufficient ability to track new cases as one of the determinants of the progressive increase in cases that began at the end of July, which after a month triggered the increase in hospitalizations, and after about 2 months that of deaths ”, adds Cartabellotta.
SALE POSITIVE / TESTED CASES
Just the inadequate number of swabs has led, according to the foundation's data, to a net increase in the positive / cases tested ratio at national level. According to the data, the ratio from mid-July to mid-August rose from 0.8% to 1.9%, to reach 6.2% in the week 5-11 October with significant regional variations. There are several regional variations: from 1.7% in Calabria to 14% in Valle d'Aosta.
THE ACCREDITED LABORATORIES
To try to do better, the Regions have accredited new laboratories to carry out swabs, doubling the number, but the question is controversial. “Neither the quantity of swabs that individual laboratories can process on a daily basis, nor quantitative information on the personnel involved in the sampling in the area are known. Moreover, the organizational criticalities observed in recent days (eg unacceptable queues and gatherings to perform the swab or dedicated telephone numbers to which no one responds) in addition to the inconvenience can generate diagnostic delays in positive patients with worsening of clinical outcomes ", reads a note from the Foundation.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutte-le-contraddizioni-dellultimo-dpcm-anti-covid-report-gimbe/ on Wed, 14 Oct 2020 13:40:08 +0000.