COVID-19: un bilancio dopo tre anni. (Italian)

COVID-19: an assessment after three years. (English)

In May 2023 WHO declared the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now time to make a balance of what happened and to evaluate what is going to happen in the future. It is estimated that COVID-19 caused over 7 million deaths worldwide. Mortality was significantly reduced with vaccine use, but it remains high in the elderly. Even hospital admissions, and in particular in intensive care, were declining with vaccine diffusion; in the first half of the current year the reduction was progressively evident. It is however wrong to think that COVID-19 is like a flu: mortality remains significantly higher than flu, and in the year after the disease there is an increased risk of death, cardiovascular problems, neurological events, worsening of neurocognitive status and alterations in lipid metabolism. The pandemic has represented a significant increase in the volume of tests for laboratory medicine, with several organizing problems that should be appropriately managed in the event of future emergencies. Even if the worst scenario of COVID-19 is over, both for vaccine protection and for the diffusion of less aggressive variants of the virus, the SARS-CoV-2 is and will be a persisting presence. There is a need for a monitoring of its diffusion, a surveillance on new and potentially worse variants, to avoid the repeating of a tragedy or the rise of a new one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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