Top Italian Health Official: Coronavirus 'Clinically No
Longer Exists in Italy
06-03-2020 Tré
Goins-Phillips, Faithwire
A top medical official in Italy said the novel coronavirus — the
illness that locked down much of the U.S. for three months — is losing its
potency and is no longer nearly as lethal as it once was.
“In
reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto
Zangrillo, head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, according to Reuters.
He
went on to say the swabs collected over the last 10 days “showed a viral load
in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones
carried out a month or two months ago.”
Matteo
Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital,
said, “The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it
has today.”
This
is good news, as early on in the pandemic, Italy quickly became a deadly
epicenter for the new virus. To date, more than 33,000 Italians have died of
COVID-19 — the third-highest death toll around the globe.
There has, though, been some push back against Zangrillo’s
assertion.
According
to Sky News,
the president of the scientific group advising the Italian government said he
was “baffled” by the claim.
Zangrillo is, nevertheless,
confident authorities overreacted to the virus. He also believes some of his
colleagues have been too alarmist in their belief the virus could come roaring
back in a second wave in the fall.
“We’ve got to get back to being
a normal country,” he said. “Someone has to take responsibility for
terrorizing the country. … I say this well aware of the tragedy for those
patients who didn’t make it, but we cannot continue to give all the attention
to self-proclaimed professors rather than actual virologists and hospital
workers.”
He went on to say he is
“prepared to put my name” on the statement that the coronavirus
“clinically no longer exists,” noting other epidemics — such as the SARS and
MERS outbreaks — “petered out by themselves.”
“We’ve got to be wary, yes, but
not kill ourselves unnecessarily,” he concluded.
Currently, there are 435 people
in intensive care in Italy, 6,387 people in the hospital, and 32,253 isolated
at home with coronavirus-like symptoms.
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