Italy's coronavirus emergency continues. The number of positive cases is on the rise, and everything possible is being done to contain the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 (also called Covid-19) virus. There are over 80,000 infected worldwide. What is known at the moment?
First known case in Italy
The first known case in Italy is that of a 38-year-old citizen of Codogno, a municipality of Lombardy in the province of Lodi. The man was hospitalized at the San Matteo Polyclinic in Pavia. It is known that he has been infected since Friday 21 February.
The first known case up to this point is a 29-year-old researcher who traveled from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus outbreak began. A Chinese couple hospitalized at Spallanzani in Rome, the first two to be diagnosed with the virus in Italy, are also in recovery.
First coronavirus death in Italy
The first death from the novel coronavirus in Italy is a 78-year-old man who was hospitalized for more than ten days. He passed away on Friday 21 February.
On Tuesday, 322 people were infected, including those injured and cured (240 in Lombardy, 43 in Veneto, 26 in Emilia-Romagna, 3 in Piedmont, 3 in Lazio, 3 in Sicily, 2 in Tuscany, one in Liguria, one in Autonomous province of Bolzano). Therefore, the geography of the spread of the virus has changed compared to the first days. Eleven people have died from the novel coronavirus. It is always important to understand whether the virus is the cause of death: the first Italian victims were elderly and/or already more or less seriously ill and Covid-19 accelerated the situation.
It is not yet clear who the so-called patient zero is, the person or people who started the outbreaks. Tracking can be important to understand the origin of an infection (the ASL in Milan has hired a team of mathematicians, physicists and doctors to define an algorithm to find it, says Simona Ravizza), even as the spread of the virus increases it becomes more difficult and ultimately less useful.
What measures are the Italian authorities taking?
Authorities are taking a number of measures to contain the infection. First of all, those who have returned from China must remain in quarantine for 14 days (although there have been longer, albeit rare, incubation periods). In addition, there are the so-called red areas, those of the outbreaks that a person cannot enter and from which they cannot leave: a decree is established, in which 11 municipalities participate. Another decree allows companies in red areas to force their employees to work remotely from home. Mortgages and taxes have also been suspended for companies and citizens, as well as in red areas. Lombardy, Veneto and other regions involved ensured the suspension of demonstrations and activities. In addition, there are schools with more than a million students who will stay at home until March 1st.
Development of a coronavirus vaccine
There is an American company that claims to be close to developing the first vaccine against the new coronavirus. She announced this on Monday night in closed markets, saying she is ready to start clinical trials by the end of April on 20-25 healthy volunteers. Cristina Marrone explains here that it is possible that the first results could already be in the summer and it is unlikely that they will be commercialized before 2021. Galli said that "it would be easier to make a vaccine against the pandemic influenza virus, because the production methods for this type of vaccine have been widely tested. In the meantime, it would be wise to learn how to get a flu shot. Membership data, even among people over 65, is still too low.”
In order not to miss new cases of infection, there is an online coronavirus map .