“After Omicron? I hope something worse doesn’t come. What is certain is that Omicron will infect the whole world. But it is a much more attenuated Coronavirus than previous Covid variants and, in many cases, only causes a normal cold. We can safely say that the virus has become human, whereas before it was much more animalistic “.
To explain the situation is Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino hospital in Genoa. “We have to say thanks to vaccines if we are in this situation that is certainly more manageable, even if still difficult. I will never tire of saying it ”.
Dr. Bassetti, you were among the first to use monoclonal antibodies and, now, also the new pill to treat Covid.
“I have always said that vaccines are essential in terms of prevention. And there is no escape from there. At a medical level, by now, we use many drugs: antivirals, cortisones, monoclonal antibodies, the new treatment that has arrived in recent days and that we have begun to administer in some Rsa. We manage the care of both patients who stay at home or in nursing homes, and the care of patients in hospitals, of course. Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least four thousand people with Covid have passed through here, certainly not a few “.
So has progress been made?
“Surely, there have been a lot of them. In the field of infectious diseases, there has been more progress in the last two years than in the last fifty in all. And this extraordinary effort by the whole scientific community has allowed us to put the pandemic practically on the corner ”.
Some of his colleagues claim that Covid in violent form no longer exists …
“Just that it no longer exists I disagree. I continue to see Tac where Covid has had devastating effects. It must be said that they are almost always Tacs from unvaccinated people. Let’s put it this way: violent Covid no longer exists for people who have vaccinated themselves. For the no Vax, however, it still exists. I believe Omicron will affect all unvaccinated people within the next three months. The choice is up to them, whether to undergo the doses or not. Someone will die of Covid, someone else will end up in intensive care. Again, it is their choice. We have explained the effects of Covid in unvaccinated people in a thousand ways “.
Schools reopened on January 10, although many principals ask for two weeks in Dad: what do you think?
“I am frankly baffled. The schools have already been closed too much and the children have lost too much with these closures and with distance learning. You can safely reopen “.
Omicron is rampant, but with less severe effects than Delta and previous variants. Should the quarantine system be reviewed?
“But it’s obvious. Must be revised by force. And you have to do it now, you can’t wait. In a few days, we will have the country entirely blocked due to people locked up at home, forced to stay in quarantine and who only have a common cold. Solutions must be found by relying on medicine, not biology. I find this a scandalous thing ”.
What do you think of the new vaccination obligation introduced by the government?
“The vaccination obligation? I think it’s too late, we should have done it sooner. The vaccination obligation, if you wanted to do it, had to be done in October, perhaps for all over 40. We are late, we continue to be chased by the virus. And instead we should be the ones to anticipate it “.
Quarantines and health care, rules to be reviewed here too?
“You have to go back in March and April 2020, when even if you were positive nobody did the quarantine and you went to work. We need to intervene in a different way on the quarantine of health professionals, because we cannot risk having hospitals that do not go ahead because there is someone asymptomatically positive after three doses of the vaccine. And on this it is necessary for the Government to intervene. Doctors have to go to work, with Ffp2 masks, because if you do a job that cannot be replaced, as in the case of doctors and health workers, the damage you create is greater if you don’t work “.
In recent days he spoke of a ‘tampon factory’ …
“We are in a phase of hyper circulation of the virus, so the swabs should be requested by the doctors, because the doctor checks if you have symptoms or not. The tampon has become the Christmas and New Year’s gift for everyone. Instead, it is a medical tool. What is the point of filling babies with tampons in complete asymptomaticity? We swab children who have symptoms and if they have symptoms they are in quarantine, at home, as has always been done for measles, chicken pox, for mumps ”.