PORDENONE – While the infections increased, marking the now classic doubling every five to six days, the human forces in the field remained the same. And to the “normal” work, made up of epidemiological investigations on the territory and swabs, was added monitoring in schools. “We still have a week or two,” explained Lucio Bomben, director of the Asfo Prevention Department, on 9 October. That moment has arrived: the tracing, the architrave of the fight against the virus on the territory, has been blown. And more than two hundred positive people are still waiting to be contacted by the health authority. It was 150 on Saturday, but the surge in infections, also felt in the province of Pordenone, has made this number rise again. It means that more than a thousand people (it is estimated that for each positive five close contacts must end up in isolation) are currently free to circulate and potentially spread the virus.
DIFFICULTIES
“Of these 150 people – they admit from the Asfo Prevention Department – we know literally nothing”. The only data is the positive swab, but there was no time to carry out the epidemiological investigation, which consists in the attempt to reconstruct the movements and contacts of the infected patient. There are two holes: the origin of the transmission of the virus, which for these cases is unknown, and the mapping of the contagion chain. “During the weekend we try to recover some of the work,” continues the analysis of the experts. But in the meantime, new infections are added, other citizens to isolate and “question”. And the system accumulates delays. The only operation that is currently possible to carry out is that relating to contacts within individual families: for each positive, the quarantine for the cohabiting nucleus is triggered. But the tracing stops there, the search for contacts outside the families is totally missing. In these hours, yet another internal reorganization of the Prevention Department is underway. It is aimed at freeing up a quota of personnel to be allocated to the tracking work. But the virus runs faster, and the operation will not be enough.
THE HELP
The white flag raised by prevention experts prompted the health company to ask for help. And a small revolution was announced yesterday by Michele Chittaro, medical director of Asfo. In fact, reinforcements will arrive within a week. Not from the classic rankings, but from two bodies that will make their forces available for the emergency. «The Army and Civil Protection – explains Chittaro – will send us personnel to strengthen our ability to trace the contacts of the positives. These will be fundamental grafts in this difficult moment ». Two doctors and four nurses will arrive in the province of Pordenone, made available by the army and civil protection. The staff will be dedicated exclusively to tracking operations. On Wednesday, however, the internal expression of interest in Asfo for the sale of the drive-in service to private individuals for the carrying out of diagnostic swabs in Maniago and the Jordanian Depot in Pordenone will expire. However, interested parties will only be able to start working between the middle and the end of November. There were also hitches on the side relating to the purchase of two machines to be assigned to laboratories specialized in the analysis of reagents. “Soon this procedure will also be unlocked,” assured Chittaro. In the meantime, however, the delays accumulate: in the province there are few swabs and it is no longer possible to trace the contacts of the infected.
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