The overall spread of COVID-19 has fallen in Italy but the proportion of cases stemming from the more infections and dangerous Delta and Kappa variants is on the rise, according to a draft of the weekly coronavirus monitoring report of the health ministry and the Higher Health Institute (ISS), sources said Friday.
Italy's COVID-19 Rt transmission number has fallen to 0.63, down from 0.69 seven days ago, the sources said.
The nationwide COVID incidence was down too, dropping to nine cases for every 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 11 last week, the sources said.
The monitoring report will be presented later on Friday after it has been examined by the government's 'control room' coronavirus taskforce.
The draft said that all of Italy's regions were low risk for COVID contagion and none were over the critical thresholds for the proportion of coronavirus patients in intensive care or in other hospital wards.
It said the proportion of ICU places occupied by COVID patients was 3%, compared to the critical threshold of 30%, and the absolute number fell from 362 on June 22 to 240 on June 29.
The proportion of ordinary hospital places taken up by COVID patients was 3% too, well below the critical threshold of 40%, with the absolute number dropping from 2,289 on June 22 to 1,676 on June 29.
It said most of the new Delta and Kappa variants cases were attributable to circumscribed clusters in various parts of the country.
Given that these variants are spreading in countries with a high level of vaccine coverage, the report calls for widespread tracing, tracking and sequencing of new cases and the completion of the vaccination cycle.
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