Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Italian MOH Now Reports 400 COVID-19 Cases & 12 Deaths















#14,962


A week ago, Italy had only reported 3 COVID-19 cases, and - like many countries do today - assumed they had the situation under control.  On Friday morning last week, they reported first 3  . . . and then a few hours later, 6 more cases.
Forty-eight hours later  (Sunday) Italy declared an Emergency COVID-19 Decree Following 79 Cases & 2 Deaths.  Towns were locked down, schools were closed, and the health department worked furiously to conduct contact tracing on cases.
Fast forward another 72 hours and the case count has risen to 400, with 12 deaths. We now know COVID-19 had been spreading - unnoticed - in Italy for 2 or 3 weeks at least.  They didn't know about it, because they weren't actively looking for it in their community.
A cautionary tale of how quickly the COVID-19 situation can go from `contained' to a full blown crisis in a matter of hours. And proof that what you don't know, can hurt you. 
The Italian MOH's 1600hrs (translated) update follows:

Covid-19, the cases in Italy at 6 pm on February 26th

400 people are infected with the new Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus in Italy. Of these 12 people died and 3 people recovered.
These are the official figures communicated today at the 18:00 conference by the Commissioner for the emergency of civil protection, Angelo Borrelli.

In the individual Regions the number of infected people is as follows:

  • Lombardy Region: 258
  • Veneto Region: 71
  • Emilia Romagna Region: 47
  • Piedmont Region: 3
  • Lazio: 3 (the 2 Chinese tourists and the resigned researcher)
  • Sicily: 3
  • Liguria: 11
  • Tuscany: 2
  • Brands: 1
  • Autonomous Province of Bolzano: 1

Of the swabs carried out 4% gave a positive result.
Watch the video with the point of the situation of 26 February at 6 pm of the Civil Protection