Cesare Cislaghi, former president of the Italian Society of Epidemiology, described as worrying ‘the growth in the number of deaths of positive subjects which also corresponds to the increase in lethality assessed both two, three, four weeks after diagnosis’.

The ISS report, which computes the data collected between December 16 and 22, indicates that in that period the number of deaths amounted to 798 with a variation of 11.0 percent higher than the figure recorded the previous week, when 711 deaths occurred.

However, in this last stage only 137,599 new infections were identified, 21.2 percent less than the 174,652 reported between December 9 and 15, although in the opinion of this specialist, ‘there is probably a higher number of cases’.

The ISS recently indicated that the Covid-19 transmission index decreased in Italy, with an average Rt of 0.91 between November 30 and December 13, as well as the incidence of cases per 100,000 inhabitants, with 233 between December 16 and 22, lower than the 296 reported in the previous week.

On the other hand, this health entity pointed out that the Omicron variant of the SARS-Cov-2 virus predominates at 100.0 percent, with a substantial increase in the presence of the BQ.1 subvariant, known as Cerberus, with all its derivatives.

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