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“The microbiologist Crisanti: “I think a Christmas lockdown is in the order of things”
“More than measures on behavior, the virus must be stopped: in 15 days I would not want to be discussing 10-12 thousand cases a day”October 14, 2020
ROME - “I believe that a lockdown at Christmas is in the order of things: we could reset the system, lower the transmission of the virus and increase contact tracing. As we are, the system is saturated”, explains the microbiologist of the University of Padua , Andrea Crisanti , guest of Studio 24, citing the example of Great Britain that has decided to lockdown during the school holidays.
“The impact that the measures adopted by the Government will have will be known in a couple of weeks. They are common sense measures that have an impact on the quality of life, I think we should instead focus on the ability we have to block the transmission of the virus in the territory” . Then he gives an example: “In Veneto we had 366 cases and 360 isolations, each case generates at least 10-15 contacts so we would have at least 5 thousand people in isolation”.
According to the professor “the system has collapsed, as cases have increased, the ability to contact tracing and swabs decreases and we enter a vicious circle that increases the transmission of the virus”. Crisanti warns about the risks of the new end of the epidemic. “Rather than measures on behavior, the virus must be stopped: in 15 days I would not want to find myself discussing 10-12 thousand cases a day”.
The Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza , reiterates that "we are in a phase change on the epidemiological level. After the summer months and after the phase that from May 4th onwards led us to a slow and gradual relaxation of the measures that had characterized the most difficult months, by now 10 weeks there is an upward trend in the curve and it is a European trend, not only Italian. Italy has numbers that, although significantly increasing, are far from other very important European countries ". But, he argues, "it would be an illusion to think that the problems of others are only those of others - adds the minister - I think there is a great European theme of the resumption of the circulation of the virus that calls us all to a need to raise the level of attention and guard.
The alert also comes from the scientific consultant of the Ministry of Health, Walter Ricciardi , guest of the TgTg program on Tv2000: "A few days ago I estimated that if we had not taken measures like the ones we are taking now, we could have reached November at 16 thousand cases (daily ed .) In fact, the pace of growth is so strong that we could get there even earlier. so the old rules and introduce these new "must be respected.