Italy's COVID-19 Wave 2 has peaked

On January 2, 2021, the turning point for the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, as the cases-tested-adjusted new cases reached its highest value of Wave 2. The 8-day moving average peaked on January 8, and has fallen now for 9 consecutive days. Note that this happy event occurred before the vaccines could have had any effect at all. Lockdowns and population discipline again produced the desired results. There are no guarantees that we will not see new flare-ups, as we saw over the Christmas holidays - from December 24 through January 8 we saw a 40% rise in the 8-day moving average new cases. We are now one or two days away from the December 23 level of persons tested adjusted new cases. This measure is now halving every 15 days.

Wave 2 Virus reproduction peaked on November 16. The virus reproduction number has fallen for 10 consecutive days for the first time since December 23. We are now at the virus reproduction levels of April 25, 2020.

The 8-day moving average mortality rate peaked on December 4, at about the rate of June 24, 2020. It has essentially been stable since the beginning of the year. I now forecast that the last person will be dying from COVID-19 in Italy on September 28, 2021. The virus will likely be around well into the next year. We still know too little about the virus to know if it will ever disappear. Other countries are in deep crisis and, as an example, Italy today stopped airline connections with Brazil and refuses entry by anyone with a travel history there during the last 14 days. Today, 377 people were reported dead, compared to an 8-day moving average of about 470. The 8-day moving average peaked at about 750 on December 3. I expect it to be at less than half of that on January 23 (360).

Recovery periods have varied over the pandemic and is now nominally at 37 days. The healthy population bottomed on November 22, 2020 and then peaked on Christmas Day. Since then it has been unstable, but increasing since January 11.

As vaccines are administered at a high rate, this favorable trend is giving the campaign a very favorable point of departure, thanks to the lockdowns and differentiated restrictions by region followed by the Government. The support of the population has evidently been sufficient to produce the very positive turning point reported above.

Wishing you all a safe and happy new year!