The head of Italy’s national institutes of health says the country has hit the “plateau” in its coronavirus infection rate, three weeks into a national lockdown, and should start to see a decline in new cases.
Dr. Silvio Brusaferro stressed Tuesday that it would be folly to relax Italy’s productivity shutdown and stay-at-home restrictions now, even though the rate of new virus infections is slowing.
But he said, “The curve suggests we are at the plateau. We have to confirm it, because arriving at the plateau doesn’t mean we have conquered the peak and we’re done. It means now we should start to see the decline if we continue to place maximum attention on what we do every day.”
The daily numbers released by Italy’s civil protection agency confirmed the trend, showing another 4,053 infections — in line with a leveling off in recent days — to bring Italy’s total confirmed cases to 105,792. Another 837 people died, bringing Italy’s toll to 12,428, the highest in the world.
Brusaferro confirmed that Italy’s R0, the average number of people who will get infected from one contagious person, is nearing one, down from estimates as high as two or three. Officials are aiming to get the R0 under one to rein in the epidemic.
In the absence of a virus vaccine that would bring that rate closer to zero, Brusaferro said governments around the world will have to come up with a mixture of measures to keep the infection curve down while gradually allowing some activity to restart.
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,500 Tuesday, eclipsing China's official count, as New York's mammoth convention center started taking patients to ease the burden on the city's overwhelmed health system and the tennis center where the U.S. Open is held was being turned into a hospital.
Also, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, the brother of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, disclosed that he has become infected and has quarantined himself in his basement.
Worldwide, more than 800,000 people have been infected and over 39,000 people have died, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy and Spain accounted for half the deaths, while the U.S. had around 3,550 by midday, eclipsing China's official toll of about 3,300.
New York was the nation's deadliest hot spot, with about 1,550 deaths statewide, the majority of them in New York City.
A Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds that docked in New York on Monday was expected to begin accepting non-coronavirus patients on Tuesday. A 1,000-bed emergency hospital set up at the Javits Convention Center began taking patients Monday night. And the Billie Jean King USTA National Tennis Center was being transformed into a hospital.