Phase 3 for COVID-19 in Italy: From a Retrospective Analysis on Deaths among Doctors in Hospitals to the Return of Children at School

Abstract

The cause of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is sadly well known for the dramatic loss of life it has led to; this new disease was declared a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020. After the People’s Republic of China, a large part of Northern Italy (the Lombardy and Veneto Regions) was the first area in Europe to be seriously affected by COVID-19, inducing the regional and central Governments to take a number of social-distancing measures to reduce the spread of the virus by adopting phase 1 of the lockdown. The pandemic has caused tens of thousands of deaths not only in the older population, but also among the doctors and health workers involved in the fight against the virus. An overview of past epidemic diffusion in Italy is reported, underlining the potential factors that could have contributed to such a large number of deaths among doctors (total 176) today, at Tzero for phase 3, September 14, 2020 with the Return of Children at school. Moreover, we make some proposals and suggestions to improve prevention for any up-surge in COVID-19, like the improve of bacterial filtration efficiency for materials designated in the production of medical-standard face-masks.