Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 cases in Italy and estimates of the reproductive numbers one month into the epidemic

2020; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1101/2020.04.08.20056861

Flavia Riccardo, Marco Ajelli, Xanthi Andrianou, Antonino Bella, Martina Del Manso, Massimo Fabiani, Stefania Bellino, Stefano Boros, Alberto Mateo‐Urdiales, Valentina Marziano, Maria Cristina Rota, Antonietta Filia, Fortunato D’Ancona, Andrea Siddu, Ornella Punzo, Filippo Trentini, Giorgio Guzzetta, Piero Poletti, Paola Stefanelli, Maria Rita Castrucci, Alessandra Ciervo, Corrado Di Benedetto, Marco Tallon, Andrea Piccioli, Silvio Brusaferro, Giovanni Rezza, Stefano Merler, Patrizio Pezzotti,

COVID-19 and healthcare impacts

SUMMARY Background In February 2020, a locally-acquired COVID-19 case was detected in Lombardia, Italy. This was the first signal of ongoing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the country. The outbreak rapidly escalated to a national level epidemic, amid the WHO declaration of a pandemic. Methods We analysed data from the national case-based integrated surveillance system of all RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 infections as of March 24 th 2020, collected from all Italian regions and autonomous provinces. Here we provide a descriptive epidemiological summary on the first 62,843 COVID-19 cases in Italy as well as estimates of the basic and net reproductive numbers by region. Findings Of the 62,843 cases of COVID-19 analysed, 71.6% were reported from three Regions (Lombardia, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna). All cases reported after February 20 th were locally acquired. Estimates of R0 varied between 2.5 (95%CI: 2.18-2.83) in Toscana and 3 (95%CI: 2.68-3.33) in Lazio, with epidemic doubling time of 3.2 days (95%CI: 2.3-5.2) and 2.9 days (95%CI: 2.2-4.3), respectively. The net reproduction number showed a decreasing trend starting around February 20-25, 2020 in Northern regions. Notably, 5,760 cases were reported among health care workers. Of the 5,541 reported COVID-19 associated deaths, 49% occurred in people aged 80 years or above with an overall crude CFR of 8.8%. Male sex and age were independent risk factors for COVID-19 death. Interpretation The COVID-19 infection in Italy emerged with a clustering onset similar to the one described in Wuhan, China and likewise showed worse outcomes in older males with comorbidities. Initial R0 at 2.96 in Lombardia, explains the high case-load and rapid geographical spread observed. Overall Rt in Italian regions is currently decreasing albeit with large diversities across the country, supporting the importance of combined non-pharmacological control measures. Funding routine institutional funding was used to perform this work.