With a sharp warning, the World Health Organization (WHO) rejected an Italian doctor’s statement that the novel corona virus no longer exists in Italy. „We have to be especially careful not to give the impression that the virus has suddenly decided to make it less sick,“ said WHO expert Michael Ryan yesterday.
„That is not the case at all,“ said Ryan in a virtual press conference in Geneva. The Italian doctor Alberto Zangrillo, director of the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, said in an interview on Sunday with the Italian television station RAI that „in reality the virus no longer exists clinically in Italy“. „The swabs taken in the past ten days have shown that the viral load is absolutely infinitely small quantitatively compared to a month or two ago,“ he said, adding that it was „time to stop terrorizing this country.“ „.
Violent debate in Italy
With his statements, Zangrillo, who became known as the family doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, sparked a heated debate in Italy. „While we are waiting for scientific evidence to support the thesis of the disappearance of the virus, I urge those who are convinced of this thesis not to cause confusion among Italians,“ said Health Secretary Sandra Zampa.
The head of the National Health Council, Franco Locatelli, said that just looking at the number of new infections every day was enough to see that the new type of coronavirus is still being used in Italy. Recently, the number of new infections fluctuated between 300 and 500 per day.
