NEW: Italy’s ICU Capacity Would Be Totally Overwhelmed If All Coronavirus Lockdown Restrictions Were Lifted, A Report Says buzzfeed.com/albertonardell…
Italy's committee of scientific experts, which advises the government, has looked at the impact of different lockdown measures, modelling more than 40 scenarios.
If you read Italian, I recommend it in full. If not, here is a brief summary:
If you read Italian, I recommend it in full. If not, here is a brief summary:
First the obvious: lifting all measures and essentially returning to pre-crisis everyday life would overwhelm the health system within the space of a month. 150,000 people in ICU by June. Capacity is 9,000.
The committee advises against re-opening schools. It estimates that doing so would essentially see ICU capacity reached in October and 48,500 people would require intensive care by the end of the year.
Gradual reopening of economic activities (the report divides the economy in 7 sectors) has limited impact as long as it is coupled with strict social distancing and restrictions on transport, recreational and leisure activities, essentially where people can come into contact
The modellers assume that face masks reduce transmission though warn that there is no definitive scientific evidence to back this. Other assumptions, mostly based on cases in Lombardy, include the assumption that symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals are equally infectious
Full story here: buzzfeed.com/albertonardell…
And for those who can read Italian, the entire report is linked in the piece, or can be found here: corriere.it/cronache/20_ap…
