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04 March 2020 "The public health measures introduced these days are aimed at avoiding a large epidemic wave, with a peak of cases concentrated in a short initial period of time which is the worst scenario during an epidemic due to its difficulty in management". This was underlined by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in a focus published on its website.

"In the case of coronavirus - reads the document - we must also take into account that Italy has an elderly population, however much older than the Chinese one, and we must protect it as much as possible from infection. The measures indicated by the authorities therefore go follow in their totality ".

The goal of social distancing, continues the ISS, "especially in a situation such as the current one in which there are no pharmacological interventions that can be implemented, is to reduce the speed of spread of the virus, moving the epidemic peak forward in time and reducing its height, effectively 'spreading' the cases over a longer period of time. This will bring benefits by reducing the pressure on the health system, which in the case of Sars-Cov-2 was already stressed by the surge in cases of flu typical of this period " .

By social distancing measures "we mean different types of intervention, which are added to other measures such as the promotion of greater hand hygiene or the use of masks: the most common are the isolation of patients, the identification and surveillance of contacts, quarantine for exposed people, closure of schools and workplaces or adoption of methods for school / university lessons and remote work.

Furthermore, measures that limit the gathering of people, such as sports events, up to the restriction of international travel must also be considered. A number of studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of this type of measures, many of which have been conducted on past epidemics and pandemics, and have generally proven effective, to varying degrees depending on the context.

In general, however, it can be said that the introduction of each measure is carefully evaluated, because each of the listed measures has direct or indirect social costs which can be very high ".