In Italy the Coronavirus emergency is not over, but the number of cases seems to be decreasing. Although the data provided by the Civil Protection on the spread of COVID19 continues to be alarming, Italy may have reached the peak of the infection and the virus appears to have slowed its run.
Since February 21, when the first case in the country triggered the alarm, we have been confronted by many numbers. In particular, we have seen the number of infections spread dramatically, but above all the victims toll. To date (as of 31/3/2020) there have been over 77 thousand positive case and almost 12,500 deaths.
Among all this data, Dr. Matteo Villa, a researcher at Milan's ISPI, decided to focus in particular on the lethality of the virus. "The thing that worried me the most," he told SBS Italian, "was the number of people infected who seemed to die because of the virus. Initially in Italy that number was still around 2%, until suddenly it shot up towards 10%. What was this telling us? "
The study, which you can read in full version on the ISPI website, has shown that although the lethality of COVID-19 in Italy is higher than that of other countries, it is definitely not 10%. This figure "says almost nothing about the real lethality of the virus that recent studies estimate in 0.7% for China, while the ISPI estimate is 1.14% for Italy", explains Matteo Villa in his study.
