Reuters touched only briefly what Dr.Zangrillo said. He is aware there are no mutations that could be traced to any change in clinical outcome (everyone else wh

Reuters touched only briefly what Dr.Zangrillo said. He is aware there are no mutations that could be traced to any change in clinical outcome (everyone else who talks about "reduced potency" also acknowledges that fact). But indeed, lockdowns or not, there has been a decrease in ICU usage and in viral load of patients. Treatments have also improved somehow (aside the "ventilator yes or no" debacle, according to Dr.Gattinoni, an Italian doctor working in Germany, the actual intubation parameters like flow of oxygen, etc. have also changed). People think social distancing and masks may have played a role (probably), but bear in mind that until the beginning of May, the government was still saying that masks were useless (a thesis still shared by some Italian experts). Only Lombardia mandated them also outside (as far as I remember). Personally (I don't have any evidence to back it up so far, so it's just speculation), I think that the route of infection matters. The vast majority of cases in the past two months were in nursing care homes (a complete screening in Lombardia in the past days found 30% positives there) and in hospitals, which also mean more viral load (closed systems) and more vulnerable people. That is no longer the case now. I know that some doctors are now handling people in "house confinement" rather than bringing them to the hospitals. P.S.: Testing capacity indeed increased but there's a lot more to do to get to decent levels.