«I believe we should continue the gradual process of reopening started on April 24: already today in the control room the curfew should be reduced by an hour or two. And I think it will be abolished in June ». These are the words of Andrea Costa, Undersecretary of Health, which give hope to all of Italy with a view to a definitive restart. To “24Mattino” on Radio24 the undersecretary added: “The data are improving, about 500 thousand vaccines are made every day – Costa recalled – there are the conditions to go ahead with the reopenings without having to go back”.
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Apart from yesterday’s physiological slowdown, with the government portal recording 385,782 new doses received, the Italian race for vaccinations does not stop. On Thursday 13th, Friday 14th and Saturday 15th, Italy constantly traveled over 500 thousand administrations per day (514,904, 515,306 and 510,265). Almost one in three Italians received at least one vaccine and the first ISS report demonstrated the effectiveness of the vaccination campaign on reducing infections and deaths: the direction is the right one.
Costa then also spoke of the Green Pass, for which, according to the undersecretary, the hypothesis of free access should be taken into consideration in order not to create inequality between citizens. Concluding: «The Green Pass is essentially based on three elements – recalled Costa – having completed the vaccination cycle, having contracted the virus in the previous months or, in fact, having carried out the swab. It is an extremely useful tool, which represents an opportunity for a sector such as tourism which is a fundamental asset of our economy ».
The immunologist Viola: “Trust in the vaccine, swabs and quarantine to those who received it are useless”
The words of Antonella Viola, immunologist at the University of Padua, this morning at Agorà on Rai3 go in this direction, with the expert criticism of the management of those who are already vaccinated: “We must give a clear signal that vaccines they work and that you have to trust vaccines: swabs or quarantine are absurd measures for those who have already been vaccinated ». According to Viola, on the curfew, new rules can be opened: “I am against the curfew at 10pm, this is the time to push Italians to stay more outdoors since the chances of contagion are much higher indoors: there is no ‘there is no scientific evidence that an extra or less hour of curfew can change that.’ On the restart, he set the possible date: “We must concentrate on essential things and be permissive where possible: maybe we can wait a little longer to reopen the closed places, but June 2 seems to me a possible date for generalized reopening”.
Sanofi Gsk and Reithera, Phase 2 vaccines
With the Regions that have shown they can vaccinate at full capacity, the tip of the balance of the pace of the vaccination campaign is in the stocks available to the governors. The contract between the European Union and Astrazeneca will end in June, of which 7,019,480 doses are currently delivered. In this perspective, the positive results in clinical phase 2 for the adjuvanted recombinant anti-Covid vaccine candidate from the French Sanofi and the British GlaxoSmithKline are encouraging. The results of the experiment have shown how the vaccine is capable of producing “A strong immune response in adults of all age groups”. This was announced by the two companies, which plan to start the phase 3 trial “In the coming weeks”. The green light is expected in the fourth quarter of 2021.
For Reithera, however, the promised funds are lacking to move on to Phase 3. Thus the Italian anti Covid vaccine risks never to see the light: once phase 2 of the experimentation is concluded, now the stalemate is caused by the lack of funds to continue, the same promised long ago and never arrived. The biotech company of Castel Romano has developed the serum called GRAd-COV2 so far it has received only 13 million of the total 89 million insured by Invitalia, the Lazio Region and Cnr: “This is a path on which we relied particularly stop does not facilitate us, it denies us one more opportunity to fight the coronavirus. I think it’s a lost opportunity »added Andrea Costa.