The fearsome variant of Covid XBB 1.5, also called " Gryphon ", runs in the USA: experts estimate it has gone from 4% to 41% of infections in the last month .

This was reported by CNN, underlining that in the north-east of the country it now represents 75% of cases .

"We haven't seen a variant take off at that speed in months," said Pavitra Roychoudhury, director of COVID-19 sequencing at the University of Washington School of Medicine's laboratory of virology. This variant - virologists and epidemiologists warn - could cause a new wave of Covid in the United States .

In Italy, meanwhile, the attention of the experts is the increase in hospitalizations due to Covid of patients who arrive at the hospital with respiratory failure or pneumonia .

This is what emerges from the survey of sentinel hospitals belonging to the network of the Italian Federation of Healthcare and Hospitals ( Fiaso ) of 3 January 2023.

Hospitalized patients occupy 39% of Covid beds and 87% of them have not had their vaccine booster dose in the last six months , despite other pathologies and an average age of 75.

The figure for intensive care is stable with 68% of patients hospitalized with serious consequences from the virus.

The percentage of unvaccinated subjects in intensive care remains 36% and the patients have an average age of 71 years.

«The frail population is less and less protected - explains the president of Fiaso, Giovanni Migliore - as evidenced by the high proportion of patients who have not taken the booster dose in the last six months and are arriving at the hospital due to consequences of the infection Covid. A figure that could increase if robust preventive actions are not taken through vaccination, especially by family doctors ».

(Unioneonline/vl)

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