The first 2 years of COVID-19 in Italy: Incidence, lethality, and health policies

BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing pandemic that was first recognized in China in December 2019. This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of the first 2 years of the pandemic in Italy. DESIGN AND METHODS: Using the negative binomial distribution, the daily incidence of infections was estimated through the virus's lethality and the moving-averaged deaths. The lethality of the original strain (estimated through national sero-surveys) was adjusted daily for age of infections, hazard ratios of virus variants, and the cumulative distribution of vaccinated individuals. RESULTS: From February 24, 2020, to February 28, 2022, there were 20,833,018 (20,728,924–20,937,375) cases distributed over five waves. The overall lethality rate was 0.73%, but daily it ranged from 2.78% (in the first wave) to 0.15% (in the last wave). The first two waves had the highest number of daily deaths (about 710) and the last wave showed the highest peak of daily infections (220,487). Restriction measures of population mobility strongly slowed the viral spread. During the 2nd year of the pandemic, vaccines prevented 10,000,000 infections and 115,000 deaths. CONCLUSION: Almost 40% of COVID-19 infections have gone undetected and they were mostly concentrated in the first year of the pandemic. From the second year, a massive test campaign made it possible to detect more asymptomatic cases, especially among the youngest. Mobility restriction measures were an effective suppression strategy while distance learning and smart working were effective mitigation strategies. Despite the variants of concern, vaccines strongly reduced the pandemic impact on the healthcare system avoiding strong restriction measures.