“Nothing has ended, perhaps only in the hopes of someone but not in certainties” and the government’s choice to end the isolation for Covid positives “is only a political act and has no scientific basis”. Talk like this Massimo Galli, former director of the infectious diseases department of the Sacco hospital in Milan, commenting on the latest decisions on the matter. “It is quite questionable that it is decided to unload certain responsibilities on hospitals – adds Galli – the power to isolate the positives will be decided by the health management. Certain measures cause a sensation but from the point of view of the realities of the facts the situation is, and will be, different We don’t know what will happen in the autumn, if an elderly woman contracts the disease in the ward and dies whose responsibility will it be?”.
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Less critical of the end of the isolation of the positives instead Claudio Maria Mastroianni, president of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit). “In the current situation – explains Mastroianni – it may be a reasonable measure but it must be counterbalanced with an important anti-Covid vaccination campaign, starting in September. At least once a year, in autumn, all the ‘over 65s’, people fragile and at risk, such as immunosuppressed patients, and healthcare workers aged 50 and over will have to make the monovalent vaccine that will cover the Omicron Xbb variant of Sars-Cov-2 “.
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Vaccines for the elderly and frail
For Galli too, vaccinations protect the population. “We are a highly vaccinated country and in which probably half of the population has contracted the infection – he specified -. It is clear that the severity of the clinical pictures, barring cataclysms and the appearance of variants, will not be very high”. And for this same reason Galli has decided to get vaccinated in the autumn. “I have already done 4 doses and the disease, but I have a series of comorbidities for which I will vaccinate. And I recommend it to the elderly and the frail”.
Particular attention to the most exposed patients is what Mastroianni also hopes for. “Obviously for immunosuppressed subjects – explains Mastroianni, who is full professor of Infectious Diseases at the Sapienza University of Rome – the hypothesis of a six-monthly booster, depending on the case, will also have to be evaluated. Like Simit, in collaboration with the Italian Society of hygiene we have produced a document, already sent to the Ministry of Health, with all the indications to follow for the anti-Covid vaccination which will have to start again in September, given that the vaccination capacity rate has decreased considerably in recent months”.
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The hospitals
In hospital facilities, after the fall of this latest ban, “attention must be kept high – warns the infectious disease specialist – never let your guard down. The situation must be monitored very carefully because the disease is still among us”.
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