Covid-19: Italy at two speeds. Report
Why hasn't the Covid-19 pandemic affected all regions in the same way in Italy? What the analysis published in Scientific Reports says.
Why hasn't the Covid-19 pandemic affected all regions in the same way in Italy?
This question was answered by the Functional data analysis characterizes the shapes of the first COVID ‐ 19 epidemic wave in Italy study published by Scientific Reports .
The analysis was conducted by a group of Italian researchers working at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Pisa), Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA, USA) and Universite 'Laval (Quebec City, Quebec, Canada).
The effects of the pandemic in Italy
Italy recorded an average of 58.25 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants . The study attributes this incidence in part to the fact that the Italian population is very old (nationally the average age is almost 46 years and the percentage of individuals over 65 is almost 22% 4) and that the age itself is related to conditions such as type II diabetes, hypertension and chronic respiratory disease, which greatly worsen the disease and increase the likelihood of death for those affected by the virus.
Uneven impact between the Regions
The aspect that aroused the interest of scholars was the uneven impact of the COVID-19 epidemic among the Italian regions. “Some parts of Lombardy and other regions of the industrialized north were hit early and particularly hard , but other areas demographically and socio-economically similar fared better – the study reads -. Furthermore, most of the central and southern regions of the country suffered a much milder epidemic, despite the waves of transfers from north to south during the period of the national lockdown ”.
The two epidemics
“Italy has seen two very different epidemics develop: a relatively mild one in most of the country and a tragic one, apparently out of control in its most affected regions,” the report reads. The reasons for this heterogeneity, discussed by both scientists and the media, could be: the characteristics of human density , large centralized hospitals versus small distributed centers, basic health care systems and pollution levels.
The variables a analyzed
The researchers therefore analyzed mobility, positivity rates, the availability of primary care, the extent of contagion in schools, workplaces and hospitals. "We wanted to understand why some regions have been hit much harder than others – said head Francesca Chiaromonte, a of the research group -, so we used verified and newly developed techniques in a field of statistics called data analysis. functional first as the wave has progressed in various regions in Italy ".
The method
The team of researchers began its analysis during the first pandemic wave by monitoring the epidemiological data released by the Italian authorities and tried to associate them with those on the mobility of people provided by Google and socio-accessible data on a series of infrastructural and economic factors. environmental. "We focused on the period from February 16, 2020, shortly before the first cases were recorded in Codogno and Vo 'Euganeo, to April 30, 2020, shortly before the first loosening of the lock-down (resumption of production and construction activities at the beginning of May) ”, the study reads.
Mobility
The researchers found that local mobility , the number of people moving to their local areas, was associated with mortality. Specifically, they used data from Google's “ grocery and pharmacy ” category, which reflects the mobility associated with the acquisition of basic necessities such as food and medicine. “Because they measure how much individuals move to where they live , compared to how much individuals move from one place to another,” the scholars explain. During the national lockdown in March 2020, these levels of mobility decreased together in Italy, by around 30% in the first week of lockdown alone and then up to 60% during the weekdays and almost 100% during the weekends of March and April.
The demographic factors
The university team also analyzed several demographic, socioeconomic, infrastructural and environmental factors individually to see if they could further explain the death rates. These included: population aging , prevalence of pre-existing conditions believed to affect disease severity, quality of primary health care distributed compared to centralized hospital health care, the potential of hospitals and nursing homes, but also schools, places of work, families and public transport capable of acting as hubs of contagion and pollution levels.
The added value of proximity medicine
“Based on the associations found by our statistical techniques, what reduces mortality may not so much be having large luxurious hospitals with many ICU beds, but rather having good access to primary care physicians ,” said prof. Chiaromonte. “In fact, having large hospitals – explained Chiaromonte – could have acted as the center of the contagion . The places where there are more beds in hospital and nursing home, more pupils per class and more employees per company are the places where epidemics have been the strongest ”.
The choices of politics
“Even if further research is needed, these results – adds prof. Chiaromonte – could be useful in guiding political decisions aiming at obtaining and obtaining contacts in contagion centers. For example, schools and places can be organized so that students and employees see only a limited group of individuals ”.
The unsolved doubts
Not all the reasons for the non-homogeneity of the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy have been clarified. “ We are not yet able to fully clarify why the epidemic was much more intense in Lombardy – concludes prof. Chiaromonte -, compared to the rest of the country ".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/covid19-litalia-a-due-velocita-report/ on Sat, 04 Sep 2021 06:39:51 +0000.