CoVid19 Italy Update – Lombardy will ‘soon’ not be able to deal with new CoVid19 cases
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Lombardy medical facilities will “soon” be unable to help new coronavirus cases, Governor Attilio Fontana said Wednesday urging everyone to stay at home.
“Unfortunately the numbers of the contagion are not falling, they continue to be high,” he said. “We will soon be unable to give a response to those who fall ill”.
“Stay at home: if you don’t understand that we’ll have to be more aggressive”.
The Emergency Commissioner and Civil Protection Chief Angelo Borrelli said Wednesday that 2,978 people have died with the coronavirus in Italy, 475 more than Tuesday. The rise on Tuesday was 345.
He said that 4,025 people in Italy have recovered from COVID-19, 1,084 more than Tuesday. Tuesday’s daily rise was 192.
He said 28,710 people are currently infected with the coronavirus in Italy, 2,648 more than Tuesday.
The takes the overall number of people infected, including people who have died and those who have recovered, has reached 35,713.
“The number to have recovered is up 1,084, a truly important number, which takes us up to a total of 4,025, up 37% on yesterday,” said Borrelli.
“There are 2,648 more positive cases,” he added, saying this was effectively steady with respect to the trend for this week.
However, Reuters reports that there is a silent surge in fatalities in nursing homes, where dozens of patients a day are dying untested for the virus, suggests the real total may be higher. While no detailed data is available, officials, nurses and relatives say there has been a spike in nursing home deaths in the worst affected regions of northern Italy since the virus emerged, and they are not showing up in coronavirus statistics.
“There are significant numbers of people who have died but whose death hasn’t been attributed to the coronavirus because they died at home or in a nursing home and so they weren’t swabbed,” said Giorgio Gori, mayor of the town of Bergamo.
While no detailed data is available, officials, nurses and relatives say there has been a spike in nursing home deaths in the worst affected regions of northern Italy since the virus emerged, and they are not showing up in coronavirus statistics.
“There are significant numbers of people who have died but whose death hasn’t been attributed to the coronavirus because they died at home or in a nursing home and so they weren’t swabbed,” said Giorgio Gori, mayor of the town of Bergamo.
In the absence of detailed data and testing, it is impossible to know exactly how many deaths in elderly care homes may be due to COVID-19 or to other causes like seasonal influenza or pneumonia.
The government has imposed tough lockdown measures in a bid to stop the spread of the virus, although it could take weeks for the results to show in terms of a consistent drop in new cases.
