Il First of May Italy enters the post-Covid phase. The end of the emergency has not yet been decreed by theWorld Health Organization (and Italy waits for the signal from the Geneva agency before proceeding independently), but they come remove the last restrictions that characterized the three years of the pandemic.
From Monday stop all’obligation to wear masks in health facilitiesstop ai inpatient swabs e emergency room patients which was already there but had remained little applied. We enter a phase of normality and whoever wanted to find a trace of what happened would not find it.
The December 2022 one has expired, the order with which the Ministry of Health will maintain is imminent the obligation for healthcare professionals and visitors to keep masks in wards with high-risk patients such as intensive care units, infectious diseases and nursing homes for the elderly (RSA). In internal medicine departments, where the average age of patients is usually very high, a certain discretion is entrusted to medical directors. The obligation to swab to enter the hospital falls. To the emergency room however, they should be foreseen filter-zones where to pass people with respiratory symptoms.
Minister Orazio Schillaci believes the emergency is over and the data bear witness to it. If a new threat should arise in the form of a different variant from those circulating today, a remote eventuality, “we are ready to intervene”. Looking forward to the season fall/winter 2023-24 when the population will be offered the flu vaccination along with that anti Covid, offering possibly updated doses based on the circulating viruses. Last Saturday on the pages of Corriere della Sera the virologist Palu he said that “the end of the pandemic should be announced, the risk is not significant”.
Two days ago the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuswas cautious: «We are very encouraged by the steady decline in deathsdecreased by 95% since the beginning of 2023. However, some countries are recording increases ».
As for vaccinations, in theory the immunization campaign continues. In practice though the request for doses has vanished. With all vaccination centers closed, hospitals administer anti-Covid on demand.
Il Lazarus Spallanzani of Rome, entirely dedicated to infectious diseases, provides for example one session a week, even without a reservation. Throughout Italy it has stored approx 236 million doses, as established by the European Commission. According to the Euractiv media network, which specializes in pan-European news, 173 million would not have been inoculated. Schillaci asked the EU Commission to renegotiate contracts with suppliers asking to be able to buy them on a national basis and not according to the distributions of Brussels. What about tampons? Hundreds of millions of kits destined not to be used.