Via The New York Times: In Italy, a Sharp Drop in Coronavirus I.C.U. Patients: Live Coverage. Excerpt:
• Italy’s lockdown leads to a drastic drop in I.C.U. coronavirus patients.
• Africa is desperately short of ventilators, among other essential supplies.
• Iran lifts Tehran’s lockdown, despite warnings from health officials.
• As Hong Kong confronts the virus, major pro-Democracy figures are arrested.
• Gun salute for Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday is canceled because of the pandemic.
• In Japan, a push to use the Olympic Village to house the homeless.
• An emerging hurdle to a vaccine: people’s reluctance to take it.
Italy’s lockdown leads to a drastic drop in I.C.U. coronavirus patients.
Two weeks ago, Italy’s intensive care units were bursting with more than 4,000 coronavirus patients, mostly in the northern regions, and at times doctors were put in the difficult position of choosing which people to treat.
By Friday, the number of I.C.U. patients had dropped to 2,812, and hospitalizations for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, had fallen from a high of 29,010 patients on April 4 to 25,786, reflecting a steady decline that is easing the burden on the country’s health care system.
“This is allowing those who work in I.C.U.s greater ease in dealing with all patients who need intensive care,” not just Covid-19 patients, said Franco Locatelli, the head of Italy’s Higher Health Council.
Experts say the decline is a result of the nationwide lockdown that Italy imposed on March 10, which drastically diminished the rate of the coronavirus’s spread.
“At the beginning of the epidemic, each infected person was spreading the virus to three other people. Thanks to the lockdown, it’s now down to under one,” said Giovanni Rezza, the director of the infective illness department at the country’s National Health Institute. “That, in turn, has an impact on hospitalizations and I.C.U.s.”
Since the lockdown, new cases have emerged mostly within families and, above all, in assisted-living and retirement homes, Dr. Rezza said, adding, “Those account for many of the deaths,” which remain over 500 per day in Italy.
