In a few days, the last restriction linked to the coronavirus emergency will fall, that on isolation, which could be examined by the Council of Ministers as early as Monday. Yet, according to the data, the virus has not disappeared. Indeed, in many states it is "raising its head", which is why the vaccination campaign will start again in Italy from the autumn. There will be no immunization obligation but the vaccine will be available to everyone, strongly recommended for the elderly and frail subjects.

The updated vaccines, authorized against the currently most widespread variant, the Xbb, will be used.

THE LATEST DATA - After 4 months of continuous decline, according to the latest bulletin of the World Health Organization, the number of monthly cases of Covid-19 in the world is growing again and exceeds one million again. The rise is the effect of the increase in infections in South Korea. Deaths, however, are still decreasing, amounting to 3,100 on a monthly basis.

In Europe, on the contrary, infections continue to fall: there were around 60 thousand in the last month with a 66% drop compared to the previous month. As far as Italy is concerned, based on the latest weekly bulletin from the Ministry of Health, new Covid cases are growing and there is also an increase in deaths, while the transmissibility index Rt returns above the epidemic threshold of 1. There were 5,732 infections in the week of July 28-August 3, against 4,129 in the previous seven days, and the incidence rose from 7 to 10 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants. Deaths have also grown, from 25 to 41. Swab tests have decreased: 138,232 from 142,987 and the positivity rate rises to 4.1 from 2.9. However, the situation in hospitals is not critical and the number of hospitalizations remains below the alert threshold.

NEW VARIANT – The new variant has been called EG.5 and is widespread above all in the Far East and Oceania.

(Unioneonline/ss)