The first wave of the third autumn with Covid has officially started. The infections are now running – 58,185 yesterday – and are increasing for the third week in a row and at an increasingly rapid pace: over 50% growth in the last seven days, after + 40% in the previous week (22-28 September) and + 10% in the earlier one (15-21 September). The virus no longer hurts as in the first waves, but still worries the rise in hospitalizations in the last few days (yesterday +295 in ordinary wards and +15 in intensive care) and so eyes remain focused on hospitals to see what will happen in the coming days .
Between tampons and severe symptoms
Also because so far the campaign for the fourth dose has been a flop with 80% of the over 60s still unprotected. «It was widely expected that with the first week of October we would have a significant increase in infections. But the indicator should not be how many people have positive swabs, we want to know how many people have severe symptoms, how many people go to hospital ”, Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Hospital in Genoa, confirmed on Radio 24.
The moves of the ministry
In the meantime, however, on the table of the technicians of the Ministry of Health, a new circular to the Regions is ready in draft with the “Indications for the management of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the autumn winter 2022-2023 season” which sets out the strategy for coming months: ranging from virus surveillance – including the appearance of new variants – to the push for vaccination to “fill the gaps in coverage” by evaluating the possibility of “combining vaccination campaigns” against Covid and influenza up to the return of masks , smart working and the limitation to gatherings and therefore the stop to major events in the event of a worsening of the situation, which seems to be happening on time. The draft of the circular on masks is clear: “Their use in closed public spaces – it reads – may be a first option to limit transmission in the community in the event that an evident epidemiological worsening is documented with a serious clinical and / or impact on the ‘health care and / or the functioning of essential services’. But yesterday evening, however, the denial of the same Ministry of Health arrived: no circular will be published. In particular, the outgoing minister Roberto Speranza himself who wants to leave the ball, also on the management of Covid, to the next government was held back. But it is not excluded that in the face of the contagion race, the document developed together with the Higher Institute of Health will not return to the track again very soon.
The vaccination campaign
After all, the battle against the virus has not yet been won as the head of state Sergio Mattarella also recalled yesterday and even if the epidemic has changed its skin, it is also true that since Omicron has existed – the most contagious but less pathogenic variant – there were over 30 thousand deaths. The most pointed weapon against Covid remains that of vaccines, especially since the new bivalent vaccines, calibrated on Omicron 1 and Omicron 4-5 (these are the now dominant sub-variants), have already arrived for several weeks. It is a pity that even the wide availability of new drugs does not seem to trigger the new vaccination campaign, especially that of the fourth doses recommended for over 60s and the frail: this is a large audience of over 19 million people, those who risk the most. severe forms and hospitalizations. Of these, only 3.3 million (17.5%) reached out to protect themselves with a new injection. If we also exclude those recovered for less than 6 months (1.8 million), 14 million are still without protection. Among other things, vaccinated people are still too few even among the elderly: only 33% among the over 80 and 16.7% between 70 and 79 years. With the vaccination campaign that continues slowly even if in the last two weeks there has been a slight rise: too small, however, to give a real turn. In the week from 24 September to 3 October, 104 thousand injections were made – an average of 15 thousand per day – just over 85 thousand in the previous week but certainly insufficient to carry out the vaccination campaign. At the rate of the last week (100 thousand doses) at the end of December – the month within which protection is recommended – only a quarter of the total over 60 and frail population will be covered with the vaccine. A number that would mark a sensational flop after the success of the last vaccination campaign which reached 50 million Italians.