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First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast
BACKGROUND: The first outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy occurred during the second half of February 2020 in some areas in the North of the country. Due to the high contagiousness of the infection, further spread by asymptomatic people, Italy has become in a few weeks the country with the greatest number...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2020
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7544517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33052317 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41256-020-00170-3 |
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author | Megna, Rosario |
author_facet | Megna, Rosario |
author_sort | Megna, Rosario |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The first outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy occurred during the second half of February 2020 in some areas in the North of the country. Due to the high contagiousness of the infection, further spread by asymptomatic people, Italy has become in a few weeks the country with the greatest number of infected people in the world. The large number of severe cases among infected people in Italy led to the hospitalization of thousands of patients, with a heavy burden on the National Health Service. METHODS: We analyzed data provided daily by Italian Authorities for the period from 24 February 2020 to 30 March 2020. Considering such information, we developed a forecast model in real-time, based on the cumulative log-logistic distribution. RESULTS: A total of 101,739 infected individuals were confirmed until 30 March 2020, of which 14,620 recovered or discharged, and 11,591 deaths. Until the same date patients quarantined at home were 43,752, whereas hospitalized patients were 31,776, of which 3981 in intensive care. The active cases (i.e. the number of patients not yet recovered until that date) were 75,528. The forecast model estimated a number of infected persons for Italy of 234,000 about, and a duration of the epidemic of approximately 4 months. CONCLUSIONS: One month after the first outbreaks there seemed to be the first signs of a decrease in the number of infections, showing that we could be now facing the descending phase of the epidemic. The forecast obtained thanks to our model could be used by decision-makers to implement coordinative and collaborative efforts in order to control the epidemic. The pandemic due to novel Coronavirus must be a warning for all countries worldwide, regarding a rapid and complete dissemination of information, surveillance, health organization, and cooperation among the states. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7544517 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75445172020-10-09 First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast Megna, Rosario Glob Health Res Policy Research BACKGROUND: The first outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy occurred during the second half of February 2020 in some areas in the North of the country. Due to the high contagiousness of the infection, further spread by asymptomatic people, Italy has become in a few weeks the country with the greatest number of infected people in the world. The large number of severe cases among infected people in Italy led to the hospitalization of thousands of patients, with a heavy burden on the National Health Service. METHODS: We analyzed data provided daily by Italian Authorities for the period from 24 February 2020 to 30 March 2020. Considering such information, we developed a forecast model in real-time, based on the cumulative log-logistic distribution. RESULTS: A total of 101,739 infected individuals were confirmed until 30 March 2020, of which 14,620 recovered or discharged, and 11,591 deaths. Until the same date patients quarantined at home were 43,752, whereas hospitalized patients were 31,776, of which 3981 in intensive care. The active cases (i.e. the number of patients not yet recovered until that date) were 75,528. The forecast model estimated a number of infected persons for Italy of 234,000 about, and a duration of the epidemic of approximately 4 months. CONCLUSIONS: One month after the first outbreaks there seemed to be the first signs of a decrease in the number of infections, showing that we could be now facing the descending phase of the epidemic. The forecast obtained thanks to our model could be used by decision-makers to implement coordinative and collaborative efforts in order to control the epidemic. The pandemic due to novel Coronavirus must be a warning for all countries worldwide, regarding a rapid and complete dissemination of information, surveillance, health organization, and cooperation among the states. BioMed Central 2020-10-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7544517/ /pubmed/33052317 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41256-020-00170-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Research Megna, Rosario First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
title | First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
title_full | First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
title_fullStr | First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
title_full_unstemmed | First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
title_short | First month of the epidemic caused by COVID-19 in Italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
title_sort | first month of the epidemic caused by covid-19 in italy: current status and real-time outbreak development forecast |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7544517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33052317 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41256-020-00170-3 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT megnarosario firstmonthoftheepidemiccausedbycovid19initalycurrentstatusandrealtimeoutbreakdevelopmentforecast |