A Lombardy doctor described Covid-19 as a "tsunami" sweeping his hospital, when more than 100 of the 120 cases of nCoV were infected with pneumonia.

Another nearby hospital is also facing a shortage of staff, as doctors turn nCoV and turn into patients.

Doctors, virus researchers and medical officials on Italy's front line against Covid-19 describe the country's health system as overloaded, like many other countries when it was attacked by Covid-19. .

In response to the "tsunami", Italy allowed nursing nurses to graduate early and call retired medical workers back to work. Hospitals in areas where Covid-19 has postponed unnecessary surgeries and race to find another 50% of intensive care beds.

"This is the worst scenario I have ever seen," said Angelo Pan, head of the department of infectious diseases at Cremona City Hospital, northern Italy, and emphasized the prevalence of pneumonia complications in nCoV infections. . He said 35 patients in this hospital had to be intubated or ventilated.

Italy is expanding the scope of the nCoV test subjects, including people who have not yet shown symptoms of a viral infection. The country is currently the third largest outbreak of nCoV in the world, with more than 2,500 people infected and 79 deaths, behind only mainland China and South Korea.

Experts say most nCoV infections in Italy are relatively mild, but at outbreaks in the north of the country, more serious cases have been reported, with mostly elderly people with a history of cancer or Other health issues. The elderly are the most vulnerable when Covid-19 attacks.

"The situation in the epidemic area is quite bad. We have many elderly people who need medical assistance. This has put a burden on hospitals in that area," said Giovanni Rezza, director of the department of infectious diseases at National Institutes of Health Italy, said.

Like Washington state in the US, many virus researchers believe that nCoV had spread in northern Italy weeks before being detected in late January. The 38-year-old patient was the first to be positive for nCoV in Lombardy and He is currently in the intensive care unit, has never traveled abroad, and was initially sent home by a doctor.

When Covid-19 broke out in Italy, the Lombardy Regional Hospital quickly fell into overload. At that time, dozens of doctors and medical personnel became infected with the virus and became patients.

"The lesson here is that you have to intervene quickly and aggressively. Otherwise, the health system will have to suffer severe consequences. We cannot compromise," Rezza said.

Criticized for finding the first case so slow, Italian health authorities later took drastic action by blocking 50,000 people in 11 northern towns from February 22 and testing viruses for thousands to control Covid-19.

Italian health officials hope these measures will only last for a short time. However, Rezza said officials may have to extend the travel restriction order and gather crowds after the first two weeks, in order to better assess what they are doing, while blockade towns have can last longer.

He said that completely stopping nCoV is impossible at the moment, but it is important to slow its spread. "The worst thing is that there are too many cases in the same place," he said.

That is the current situation in Lodi, located more than 30 km east of Milan. Two floors of this city hospital are being used to treat 250 nCoV-infected patients, of which about 70 are in critical condition. The doctor here views Covid-19 as a "mass casualty incident" and it is getting worse when attacking medical staff.

"The hospital is trying to stand up to the current extremely difficult situation. Doctors, nurses and technicians are all infected, so they are forced to stay at home," said Enrico Storti, head of the department of emergency resuscitation.

Italian health officials said 10% of health workers in the Lombardy region were infected with nCoV. Meanwhile, Costantino Troise, head of medical association Anaao Assomed, said health workers accounted for 5% of all infections in Italy. He added that the recent budget cuts caused the country to face a shortage of thousands of doctors and nurses before Covid-19 attacked.

At the hospital in Lodi, 43-year-old doctor Francessca Reali is now a nCoV-infected patient. She said her symptoms were worse than the flu, but not serious. She guessed she was infected with the virus a few days before learning that Covid-19 had appeared in town and had no protective measures at work.

"A lot of doctors like me have been infected with nCoV, at least 5 people," Reali said.

Coughing for a phone interview, Massimo Vajani, head of the local health association, said she had taken the nCoV test five days ago and was waiting for the results. Three of the four family doctors in the town of Castiglione d'Adda in the Lombardy region are currently isolated. "We need more doctors and nurses," he said, adding that doctors are trying their best to support patients from afar.

"I think the system can cope or not depends on the progress of the epidemic in the coming days. Many other services have been affected," said Pan, the hospital doctor Cremona.

Hospitals still maintain chemotherapy services for patients, but unnecessary surgeries are postponed and local HIV treatment services are suspended.

Giovanna Cardarelli went to Lodi City Hospital to visit her father, 92, who was hospitalized with heart disease before Covid-19 broke out. His father could not transfer the hospital to perform the required minor surgery until he had a negative test result with nCoV, because other hospitals were afraid of the risk of infection.

"I don't blame anyone, but I feel very stressed. Two weeks have passed. My father is very depressed and we are all extremely tired," Cardarelli said as he took off his protective gear and washed his hands with solution. germicide.