Currents News Staff
Italy recorded a record number of positive COVID-19 tests for the fifth day running on Sunday.
But in a marked contrast to the ‘first wave’, the number of patients in intensive care remains relatively low.
Italy is well into the second wave of coronavirus, though it’s not immediately apparent in Naples, the capital of the Campania region – which has one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases in the country.
Infectious disease specialist Alessandro Perrella says it’s not just about the numbers.
“We have an increasing number of positive people, positive, not an increasing number of patients. It’s very different,” says Perrella.
What’s different is the testing. Earlier this year, only those showing COVID-like symptoms were tested. Now everyone can do it.
The majority of people who prove positive are asymptomatic, isolating until recovery.
The number people in intensive care now approximately a fifth of what it was before.
Day after day Italy is reporting record increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. But Italy is also testing like never before.
At a hospital in Naples every day, seven days a week, around a thousand tests are conducted – quickly, and for free.
Five times as many tests are being conducted now than at the height of first wave in march.
A once unwieldy process, now routine. There’s no air of panic, but there is concern.
The number of new cases is erupting in Italy and the peak of this wave is far off. Better prepared this time, Italy is still bracing for a long, hard winter.