Home » In Italy vaccines for everyone, in Trentino only over 50: Dr. Ferro explains why (it is a strategy, he says) – Health and Wellness

In Italy vaccines for everyone, in Trentino only over 50: Dr. Ferro explains why (it is a strategy, he says) – Health and Wellness

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TRENTO. «A vaccinated eighteen year old is not as good as a vaccinated seventy year old. From a public health point of view, the importance is different. Giving a dose over the age of fifty means protecting the person but it also means protecting the hospital and our health system. Pears and apples cannot be compared ». Dr. Antonio Ferro, health director and director of the Prevention Department is grappling with a historic vaccination campaign. An operation never seen before, to be carried out with great difficulty but in the shortest possible time. He explains the strategy he intends to pursue. A strategy that is also the answer to the questions that many are asking these days, and which concern the opening to forty-year-olds, the opening to adults, the so-called “AstraZeneca night”.

Doctor, we seem to understand that it is better to “recover”, using time and energy, one of the relatively few elderly people who have not been vaccinated than to go and immediately protect ten forty, thirty or twenty year olds.

It is a public health strategy. Covering the over 50 has a different importance than other age groups. And this reasoning also includes the fragile, the “exempt tickets” to which we have given priority over 40-49 years. The elderly and the frail are at greater risk if they become infected, end up in hospital more often or die more often. In the older bands we had an important response and coverage, at the national top. What are we still doing? We sent letters and requests to join all the people from Trentino over the age of 70 who had not been vaccinated. We contacted 14 thousand of them and we convinced 25% of them. So about 3,500 who initially did not get vaccinated today or have already received the sting or are booked and will have it in the next few days. An excellent result. And the fact of having protected thousands of more elderly people can be seen concretely in the data of the bulletin every day: the positives are very few, hospitalizations are decreasing and deaths are at 0 for eleven consecutive days.

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And with the over 60s?

We have done the same, but it takes about two weeks to evaluate the response. If we recovered 25% it would be another great result.

This strategy also includes home vaccinations, which cost time, personnel and effort, but which are fundamental.

We have vaccinated 7,500 people in their own homes in Trentino because they cannot move. In general, returning to the elderly, the idea is to go and take home those who have not yet been vaccinated one by one. However, we must also look to the future. Trentino has shown that it can administer even five or six thousand doses a day, but in the next few days having to give “only” second doses, elderly “recovered” and the very few who have joined the exempt tickets we will have many “holes” and we would slow down. Despite the maximum attention to the elderly and the frail, we will soon open to the forties. We will decide whether to give the green light to 40-49 or earlier to 45-49 years: in recent months we have seen that at each opening about 45-50 percent of the total of an age group adhered immediately, in the very first hours. We must therefore do some calculations according to the doses we have. Open yes, but with certainties we seem to understand. I want to open up, but I also want to give a serious answer to the people of that particular target. If we have two thousand spaces and the demand is for eight thousand people, it would be not very serious to make appointments two or three weeks later. We could also do “AstraZeneca nights”, but the impact on public health of those initiatives is negligible. I return to the initial speech: first who risks the most.

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But young people, sooner or later, will have to be protected. We were told that they were the ones who carried the virus around in the winter.

When we have the doses I will work hard to protect them, there will be a very strong information campaign. Opening to 20-year-olds doesn’t make much sense today. I’ll be repetitive but I’ll say it again: the cartridges I have to shoot today I shoot them on important targets.

South Tyrol has opened to everyone, in these days it is running more than us from the point of view of daily doses (on average the last week 4668 in Bolzano and 3554 in Trento).

They are open to all because they do not have coverage in the older age groups. I read that the two provinces go at two different speeds: and fortunately, I would add, because we are still giving doses to the over 50s, which is why we have not yet opened to younger ages. Reading that Trentino is struggling only because others have opened up to everyone is a scientific blasphemy. As already mentioned we could open immediately and then give the first dose in July, but we have always chosen, out of seriousness and respect, to give the green light to reservations when we could guarantee the administration within a few days, if not the day after.

There is a lot of talk about AstraZeneca night: we have over twenty thousand of these doses in the fridge, why don’t we give them to whoever wants?

When there was a high percentage of positive cases it made sense to use that vaccine even with the youngest ones, because the risk-benefit ratio was clearly in favor of the latter. Today the viral endemia is much lower and must be taken into account. For this reason, the indications of public health are valid for a maximum of one month, then the strategies can change. Let’s say AstraZeneca aged 18 and over and whoever comes is not without risk. There is a minimal risk of thrombosis in women up to 48 years of age and therefore we need scientific indications in this regard. Soon many doses of AstraZeneca should arrive, but until the age is lowered they will be little used. And if we are a serious country we must follow what the Higher Institute of Health and Ministry tell us.

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