Italy's average COVID-19 Rt
reproduction number has risen to 1.06 and the general risk level
has increased for the fifth consecutive week, according to a
draft of the weekly coronavirus monitoring report of the health
ministry and the Higher Health Institute (ISS).
The Rt has gone back above the crucial threshold of 1 one after
seven weeks.
The Rt was 0.99 in last week's monitoring report.
COVID-19 contagion has been rising sharply in Italy after the
arrival of new, more contagious variants of the virus, including
the British one, which has become the predominant form.
The report said 10 regions/autonomous provinces had a Rt over 1
and in Molise it was over 1.25
It said five regions/autonomous provinces were over the mark of
250 cases in a week for every 100,000 inhabitants - a threshold
above which it is necessary to impose the most stringent
mitigation measures - the province of Trento (385.02 cases for
every 100.000 inhabitants), the province of Bolzano (376.99),
Emilia-Romagna (342.08), Marche (265.16) and Lombardy (254.44).
It said only two regions, Sardinia and Umbria, had not reported
alert signals, while Campania and Lombardy had reported multiple
alarm signals,
The final version of the monitoring report will be presented
later on Friday.
A separate report on the impact of the pandemic complied by the
ISS and statistics agency ISTAT said that Italy registered
108,178 more deaths between March and December 2020 than it did
on average in the same period in the years 2015-2019.
Italy's COVID mortality rates were 14.5% in the north, 6.8% in
the centre, and 5.2% in the south of the country last year, that
report said.
By age group, the rates were 4.6% in the 0-49 bracket, 9.2% in
the 50-64 one, 12.4% in the 65-79 group and 9.6% in the over
80s.
ISS and ISTAT added that there were 52,000 more deaths in the
second COVID wave from October to December, with respect to
previous years.
The most deaths were in the over-80s, 486,255, up 76,708 on the
previous five-year period.
Deaths in Lombardy, the region most affected by the coronavirus,
were up 11.8% from March to May 2020, while deaths in Marche
were up 27.7%.
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