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COVID-19: Effectiveness of Widespread Diagnostic Tests to Prevent Health Care Collapse in the Veneto Region, Italy
14 Pages Posted: 5 May 2020
More...Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic affects >1·5 million people in 210 countries. To prevent the spread of the epidemy, countries have applied severe social distancing policies. As to tracing and isolation of affected individuals, in the 20 most affected nations (that cover nearly 90% of total reported cases) the policies have been very different, with testing for SARS-Cov-2 ranging from <300 to >20,00 per million of inhabitants. Italy was the first severely affected European country, where the containment measures have thus been applied earlier, thus represents an important case study. Its health system is regionally regulated and while social distancing measures have soon been applied nationally, molecular testing and home isolation policies have been partly different in the various regions. We here report the case of Veneto, one of the most severely affected Italian Region.
Methods: Timely lockdown and widespread diagnostic tests aimed at reducing the likelihood of transmission have been adopted to break the chain of infection since the early cluster detected.
Findings: 40·50 tests per million inhabitants were performed. A peak of 356 patients admitted to the ICUs represent the 72% of the standard regional capacity; 2068 were hospitalized and 9052 in quarantine. The total number of hospitalized, ICUs admissions and deaths grew at a much slower pace than the other highly affected regions of Northern Italy.
Interpretation: Presented data indicates the effectiveness of timely lockdown and widespread diagnostic tests in preventing COVID-19 diffusion and the subsequent collapse of health care capacity.
Funding Statement: Not applicable.
Declaration of Interests: All authors report no conflict of interest to declare.
Keywords: COVID-19, lockdown, widespread diagnostic tests, Italy-Veneto
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation