The new cases of Covid-19 in Italy continue to decrease, for 15 consecutive weeks. This is good news, however, which is accompanied by a criticality, as the testing activity has also progressively decreased and this determines an underestimation of the infections. The Gimbe Foundation, together with the Undersecretary of Health Pierpaolo Sileri, draws attention to the centrality of tests and case tracking in this waning phase of the pandemic, while the vaccination campaign machine proceeds and the emergency commissioner Francesco Figliuolo reassures that a third dose is already being planned. “We are thinking of a possible third dose, with the Ministry of Health – confirms Figliuolo – we have already made some purchase options, so the doses will be there but it will be science to tell us if and after how long the recall should be injected. We are ready. – he added – we are gearing up, but the new philosophy is to go to general practitioners, pharmacies and clearly on hospitals who will also remain equipped for vaccinations, to get out of the logic of the big hubs “. Therefore, fewer cases, but also the testing activity, Gimbe warns in the latest monitoring, has dropped by more than 60% from the beginning of May to today, which “underestimates the number of new cases and documents the insufficient tracing of contacts” . Yet, Sileri points out, “tracking and vaccines are the weapons to counter the spread of the Delta variant”.
In particular, in the week 23-29 June 2021, compared to the previous one, Gimbe detects a 26.9% decrease in new cases (5,306 compared to 7,262) and a stabilization of deaths (220 compared to 221). Data also confirmed in the daily bulletin of the Ministry of Health: 882 test positives in the last 24 hours (yesterday, however, there were 776) and 21 victims are instead. The swabs carried out in the last 24 hours are 188,474 and the positivity rate is 0.46%. In the 24 hours also the number of hospitalized in intensive care (-18) and in the wards ordained (-61) fell. A separate case is represented by the Marche Region: on the last day there was a surge of positive cases, reaching 46, linked to a cluster of 16 people, infected during a party in a flashing establishment in San Benedetto del Tronto. At the same time, however, there are still too many over-60s who are not vaccinated and therefore at risk: to date, 2,384,966 people of this age group (13.3%) have not yet received even a dose of the vaccine and 4,648. 515 (26%) are waiting to complete the cycle. There are therefore over 7 million over-60s partially or totally exposed to the risk of serious illness who do not have adequate coverage against the Delta variant. And in fact, only the complete vaccination cycle guarantees protection from this mutation, which is fearful due to its greater contagiousness.
“Our data show that two doses of the four approved vaccines protect against the Delta variant, these data are reassuring – explained Marco Cavaleri of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) -. It is important to continue vaccination with particular attention to more people. vulnerable and the elderly “. Cavaleri also noted that the EMA is currently unable to provide a definitive recommendation on the use of different anti-Covid vaccines for the two doses of the cycle, but “preliminary data from studies in Spain and Germany show a good immune response. of heterologous vaccination and no safety problems “. And the first opinions of the EMA on the 5 treatments selected by the EU Commission as part of the anti-Covid therapeutic strategy are expected by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the schedule of the vaccination campaign in Italy is confirmed. In July, Figliuolo assured, “we will keep the quota of 500 thousand doses per day. In July we will have the same doses of RNA vaccines as in June”. The problem, he warned, however, is linked to the “agendas that many Regions have planned before the new CTS prescriptions came out that lead Astrazeneca to be used only for second doses for the over 60s”.