Everything is ready for the new vaccines against Covid. On Thursday the Ema, the EU drug agency, after the regulatory bodies of the United Kingdom and Switzerland, will grant a wide authorization, starting with adolescents, for the two new medicines made by Moderna and Pfizer: these are the bivalent vaccines that are were created on the original strain of the virus, that of Wuhan, and on Omicron 1. The Health circular is also on the way, which will reduce home isolation for asymptomatic positives, a light quarantine that should not exceed five days.
New bivalent vaccines
The studies on the EMA table show that the new “adapted” vaccines provide a stronger immune response than the first vaccine against the BA.1 and BA.4 / 5 variants, while the protective effect against the original virus (Wuhan strain ), measured in terms of antibody concentration, would remain equivalent to the old one. After the approval of the EMA on September 1, September 5, Aifa, the Italian Medicines Agency, will in turn give the authorization for our country, while again next week the EMA together with the ECDC ( the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control) should also give indications on the priority categories to which access to new vaccines is guaranteed: we always think of the over 60 and the vulnerable. We should start with them and then broaden the audience to other categories.
The new vaccination campaign
So far the procedures that should ensure the arrival in Italy of the first vials of the new vaccines – well-informed sources let the EMA know – already by the end of September and therefore with the polls just closed. But the car will have to leave before and therefore after the summer truce – from mid-August contagions, hospitalizations and deaths are decreasing – Covid will return to the spotlight in the next few days after being almost totally absent from the electoral campaign, if we exclude the issue of the mask at school where it will no longer be mandatory to wear it when students return in mid-September. If the organizing machine of the new vaccination campaign, after the flop of the fourth dose, will be up to the task force at Palazzo Chigi led by the general Tommaso Petroni in any case, the policy will have to intervene to provide clear information and support, including economic support, even if it will focus less on hubs in favor of doctors and pharmacies.
The days of isolation are reduced
The debate will also be heated by the new rules on the home isolation of asymptomatic positives that could have already changed between today and tomorrow. Yesterday the Higher Health Council met to give its opinion on the new “light” quarantine and after this opinion the Ministry of Health should issue the circular wait. In practice, in the wake of what has already been decided in other countries, there should be a reduction to 5 days (from the current 7) if it has been without symptoms for at least 48 hours and a negative test can be produced. Although there are those who push to ask directly for the abolition of the test as happens in other countries starting from the USA: in practice, if you have no symptoms, you leave the house perhaps with the foresight to wear the Ffp2. For cases of long positivity, on the other hand, the aim would be to conclude the isolation after 10 or 15 days at the latest.