COVID-19: monitoring report sounds alarm about Delta clusters in Italy

ROME. KAZINFORM A draft of the weekly coronavirus monitoring report of the health ministry and the Higher Health Institute (ISS) has sounded the alarm about clusters of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in Italy, sources said Friday.

It warned that this variant was more contagious and had the potential to partially elude the response of immunization, WAM reports.

It said this and other variants had led to an unexpected increase in cases in other European countries with a high level of vaccination coverage.

So, the report called for widespread sequencing and tracing of cases and renewed efforts to complete the vaccination campaign to prevent the pandemic from flaring up again.

The report was being examined by the government's COVID-19 'control room' task force on Friday and will be presented later in the day.

It said the national COVID-19 Rt transmission number was steady at 0.69, but the incidence of cases dropped to 11 for every 100,000 inhabitants, down from 16.7 last week.

A Rt over 1 indicates the epidemic is in a phase of expansion.

The report said all of Italy's regions were classed as low risk for contagion, except for Molise, which was moderate risk.

It said the proportion of intensive-care places occupied by COVID patients has fallen from 5.7% to 4%, with the absolute number dropping from 504 on June 15 to 362 on June 22.