COVID-19 Infection Pandemic: From the Frontline in Italy

Abstract

The infection caused by COVID-19 (i.e. corona virus disease 2019) has caused more than 5.2 million cases and more than 337,000 deaths worldwide. Italy was the European epicenter for virus spread and one with most cases and deaths. The first Italian patient was diagnosed on February 18th, a young man hospitalized in Lombardy (Northern Italy). The Italian government not only isolated the village where he lived, but a few days later put the entire country in lockdown. We have here analyzed the COVID-19 Italian data during the first three months after the outbreak and the effect of lockdown. COVID-19 virus has a high transmission rate and is associated with high fatality rate especially in the older population. The initial reproduction rate of the virus (R0) in Italy was between 2.1 and 3.3 in different Italian regions, with a doubling time between 2.7 and 3.2 days. The number of confirmed cases has now reached 229,000 but after the lockdown R0 is finally below 1. Despite the lockdown, the number of infected and deceased patients in Italy was very high, with a lethality rate higher than in other countries. It is likely that number of cases is underestimating the real since the number of asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic is relatively high. It is important to investigate which patients are more vulnerable and also if other co-factors can account for this high fatality rate, since this pandemia is far from being resolved.