A virus still not “human”

Here an interview with professor Stefano Petti, epidemiologist at the Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases of the Sapienza university of Rome, which overturns perceptions of current coronavirus.

 Professor, as you are spreading the SARS-CoV-2?

 “The 8th of march is the incidence (number of cases) is 6 x 100,000), Korea is 14 x 100,000 (data from Korea Centers for Disease Control, press release 08032020), more than double that from us. However, the more a virus spreads, the more it adapts to humans and becomes less dangerous. In fact, the higher the incidence, the lower the hazard, it is also seen in China: on the 5th of February, the time when the spread of the virus was maximum, the danger was at a minimum. The same is happening in Korea, where the lethality is exceptionally low, they die only 7 sick people per thousand”.

 What is the lethality?

 “Indicates the number of deaths in relation to the sick, is often mistakenly called mortality, which is the number of patients than in the general population (the 8th of march, the mortality from COVID-19 in the uk, one out of every hundred thousand, a minimum probability if we think that the mortality rate for flu –only a third controllable by vaccination – it is well-13.3 per hundred thousand. It is four times more likely to die slipping while walking, but this fact does not prevent us from walking all the days of our life). As mentioned, the lethality is higher when the virus spreads a little. In Korea, the lethality is now at 0.7%, but reaches 6% among those over 80, we are almost at 5%, but arrives to 10.9% among those over 80 (ISS Press Release 16/2020, 6 march 2020)”.

It means that the coronavirus from us is the most dangerous?

 “That’s correct. However, for the most vulnerable people: the average age of patients who died from the COVID-19 in the uk is 81 years, and in more than two-thirds of the cases the sick have three or more pre-existing diseases (ISS Press Release 15/2020, 5 march 2020). From what has been said, and paradoxically, if and when the virus will be more, will be less dangerous.”

The incidence is low, but the perception is, on the contrary, whether it is a virus that is spreading like wildfire.

 “He said, ” well, it is the perception. We are doing an active surveillance of the new coronavirus. Active surveillance increases the number of cases detected (Vogt et al, 1983; Viner et al, 2014). For example, in Italy, with the special surveillance of measles, the cases notified have even quadrupled year-on-year (Source: Istituto Superiore di Sanità, click here). In conclusion, we are counting all of the people infected, including those that show few symptoms: there are thousands of cases that would not be detected with surveillance conventional because only a few of these would go to the doctor or hospital to get the diagnosis. Compared to influenza and to other respiratory diseases important, the incidence of COVID-19 is measured in a much more analytical. Despite this, as of the date of march 8, you are recorded almost 8000 subjects positive to the new coronavirus, the cases of flu-like flu and acute respiratory infection in only eight weeks, there have been over 5,000,000. Click here.

Land figures speak for themselves. But there is more, because of this difference in the type of surveillance also exists between Italy and the greater part of other Countries, and makes our incidence data artificially high. In France, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and other european Countries, to have the swab naso-pharyngeal, which leads to the eventual diagnosis of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the patient must have symptoms, and it must be in contact with a sick person of COVID-19. Click here.

On the contrary, by any person with even a single symptom of respiratory infection can be subject to the buffer at the discretion of the doctor. It is natural that in this way the other Countries observe only the tip of the iceberg of the cases of infection while the Italy going more in depth in the search for the virus is found with a number of cases much greater”.

The disease is called COVID-19 and is pneumonia?

”Yes. In the Lombardy region in 2017 there were 2.537 deaths from pneumonia, the mortality was of 25,27×100.000. 94% of pneumonias deadly is attributed to the four human coronaviruses, the respiratory syncytial virus, the mycoplasma pneumoniae, the pneumocco, staphylococcus aureus, the parainfluenza virus, influenza viruses, both those present and those not present (the majority) in vaccines. (Source: Istat). Because you never heard of prevention of staphylococcus or mycoplasma?”

However, it is spoken of factor of the reproductive R0, it is said that is high and that is why we need to stay in isolation.

“The factor R0 indicates how many people are infected by a sick person. When a virus adapted to man has an R0 above 1 means that each sick person infects more than one person (and it goes like this until there are no more people to infect). The new coronavirus has a R0 of 0.4 means that, within a small core there is a infected every 4 contacts. Click here. What does it mean? At the moment we’re looking at a virus still opportunistic as the virus that come from animals and that have an R0 close to 0. It means that the new coronavirus is spreading less than expected, although it cannot be excluded that subsequent mutations may cause a greater adaptation to the human species”.

How helpful are the isolation of people and the closure of public places?

 “The restrictive measures based on quarantine and isolation are not served, we are seeing it. Have been decided on the basis of a presumption in the scientific, the presumption of knowing who is infectious and who is not. If they had worked we would have observed a reduction of cases since the time of incubation of the disease (equivalent to 2-14 days) . The decree that promulgated the restrictive measures dating back to 21 February (Press number 85 and 87), if the quarantine had worked the number of cases would have to decrease two days later, on the 23rd of February, and not later than fourteen days, namely, on the 6th of march, instead of the 7 and 8 march were registered more than 1000 cases per day, the highest so far. During the press conference on march 7, it is also said that restrictive measures have worked in the area of the epicenter and have, therefore, been extended to other areas in order to stem the spread of the virus. Then you should ask yourself: “How did the infection out from the epicenter, and throughout Italy, if the measures have worked in the area of the epicenter? Perhaps they are escaped subjects infectious but asymptomatic, in their turn, influenced by other people asymptomatic?”. From the foregoing it can be said that if the SARS-CoV-2 from the us has spread very little so far has been due to the effect of the features still a little ‘human’ of the virus and the effect of these drastic measures of restraint”.

The recommendation to remain isolated as possible to avoid becoming a vehicle for the virus and transmit it to the immunosuppressed and the elderly makes sense?

 “Unfortunately, the immunosuppressed have problems with all of the infections. Many of the deaths attributed to the COVID-19, for example, have occurred in patients who were taking chemotherapy. Perhaps few people know that 20% of deaths in these people is due to infections of all types, viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc., (O’brien et al., 2006). The new coronavirus was the virus that was circulating at the time and the patients in the chemotherapy you are infected with that, but it would, unfortunately, deceased, however, due to any other micro-organism working”.

 However, it seems that the intensive care units are overcrowded.

 “But it’s always so! I understand that those who do not attend hospitals not to know it. Unfortunately in Italy we are at the fifth position in Europe for the number of beds in the icu. Click here. We are always in emergency and not from today”. For example, two years ago in the intensive care unit to collapse due to the flu and pneumonia. Click here.

 What to do to prevent it?

“Not all will become infected. To get sick you need a prolonged exposure to the source of the infection, and a certain susceptibility. If we were all susceptible we ammaleremmo in mass, but of a lighter form. At this point it would be useful for the whole Italian population to adopt the following measures: ventilate closed spaces, schools, hospitals (where it is often impossible for the air exchange), hotels, and do it several times throughout the day to dilute the charge, infectious droplet, the droplets of saliva that are emit talking about. Limit the stay in damp places, such as hospitals and rest homes. I have never seen a decree so restrictive as that of 8 march. Perhaps by doing so we have the presumption to delete this new coronavirus forever, or keep him at bay until an effective vaccine and 100% secure will be available to all. However, they have been considered their own situations to the increased risk of transmission, i.e. the transmission of intra-family: you ask the elderly not to go out of the house and at the same time requires children and young people not to go to school. Then there is the transmission in hospitals and care homes, and rest, where they would be needed the interventions of architectural or structural to prevent transmission via droplets.

I thank professor Breasts of the explanations to be accurate. To complete the upgrade, we analyze the other three points.

The closure of schools. The closure of schools has been decided by the government from 24 February, in spite of the ECDC, the european Council for the prevention of diseases, has put in writing on 10 February that “there are no data that could in any way suggest that the closure of proactive schools could be of some effectiveness in the attenuation of the epidemic of 2019 – nCov”. But on the issues of health should not speak science? Click here.

As an influence. To the voices, just listen to, who we have invited to do scaremongering, the epidemiologist Leopoldo Salmaso, click here, to infettivologo of San Martino, Matteo Bassetti, here, you added the authoritative director of the CDC Robert Redfield , who together with the director of the NIH (National Institute of Health, Anthony Fauci, has written the following on The New England Journal of Medicine:

 “If it is assumed that the number of cases asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic be several times higher than the number of reported cases, the mortality rate can be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the clinical consequences of the general COVID-19 may ultimately be more similar to those of a severe seasonal flu has a fatality rate of around 0.1%) or an influenza pandemic (similar to 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, who have had rates of lethality between 9% and 10% and 36%”. Click here.

Here you find the letter that professor Giulio Tarro has sent to the parents.

Pandemic and speculation. It seems a little “human” also the financial speculation on the number of dead due to the fact that the WHO does not declare a pandemic. Speculation announced by the magazines. Click here, here and here. Oddly enough, the WHO has not yet declared a pandemic by the new coronavirus. What he did not hesitate to do with the swine flu of 2009 (which led to the closure of schools, nor to the isolation of the population), when the influence is showed diffusive but not serious, here.

Original source: http://blog.ilgiornale.it/locati/2020/03/10/un-virus-ancora-poco-umano/