The coronavirus that swept the world has become far less lethal and is losing its “potency,” a top Italian doctor says.
“In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, said, according to Reuters.
“The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.
COVID-19 cases peaked in mid-April and while numbers continue to stay high, most experts attribute that to the surge in testing. “Italy, specifically, now averages fewer than 100 COVID-19 deaths per day after becoming the global epicenter just two months ago,” Reuters reported.
Zangrillo said some experts were too alarmist about the prospect of a second wave of infections and politicians needed to take into account the new reality.
“We’ve got to get back to being a normal country,” he said. “Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious diseases clinic at a hospital in Genoa, Italy, confirmed Zangrillo’s analysis.
“The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today,” he told the ANSA news agency, Reuters reported. “It is clear that today the COVID-19 disease is different.”
