The first doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be in Italy in the second half of April, but it will be “limited quantities which will then increase from May and June”. Meanwhile, the shipment of AstraZeneca vials has been postponed for this week and the load will be recovered on March 24th, when with the new arrival a total of 279 thousand doses will be delivered.
Fortunately, the requests are backed up by the more than 333,600 of Moderna stocked in the military hub of Pratica di Mare. On the tables with the promises and delays of the various pharmaceutical companies, in the hands of the Commissioner for the Covid Emergency, Francesco Figliuolo, there are the numbers of a country that will have to administer half the potential envisaged by the Plan for another month (at the moment travels around 150,000 doses per day). But for the general the goal remains the same: “500 thousand inoculations a day from the third week of April, a number that will rise if we are even better – he says – And the four days lost after the suspension of AstraZeneca” can be recovered in a short time time”.
While waiting for the VIPs of the world of culture and sport to extend their arm to the needles of doctors (in Piedmont and Campania they have already been announced), the first real testimonials are the two key men of the vaccination campaign: at the Defense drive through Cecchignola, in the military citadel of Rome, Figliuolo and the head of the Civil Protection, Fabrizio Curcio, waited in line for their turn and after a few minutes – in a necessary and symbolic rite – they were ready to enter the army tents to receive the administration of AstraZeneca.
In some regions, the cancellation of reservations for Anglo-Swedish vaccines “was 20%, in others 10% and in others such as Lazio there was no. So the differential is practically zero “, the Commissioner Covid assured, who immediately aims at” an acceleration “. And for the general, even the new weekly blackout on AstraZeneca arrivals will not have an impact on the vaccination campaign.
We are already working on the future, hoping to arrive at 52 million doses expected in the second quarter of the year: “there are regions that have had organizational problems that they are solving: we are probing situations to understand how to better support them”, he explains. the general, who will soon have his offices in Palazzo Caprara in Rome, in the former headquarters of the Defense Staff.
To strengthen the territories beyond the current numbers still relatively small and beyond the possibilities already declared, even the Civil Protection has just fielded its “troops” of civilians: Curcio has just «activated the national voluntary service of the Department, all the structures are authorized to operate “. If in all, on this front, there are resources for 300 thousand people ready to make themselves available to the country, “those thousands of units that the Regions will request to support the vaccination structures will be committed”. Volunteers who must, however, all be immunized before being operational. From logistical needs to staff shortages, the wishes are different and the needs map is still under construction. Pending inoculations in pharmacies and companies, the number of vaccination points has already grown by 25% since the beginning of March, from 1510 to 1868.
Pediatricians will soon be added to the system, who – indicates the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, “will be at the forefront starting with the parents of the most fragile children”.
The categories are therefore starting to climb: the administrations to fragile citizens in the capital have just begun, right in the Cecchignola and from next week we will go to full capacity with inoculations over whole days. Even the experimentation does not stop: that of the Italian vaccine ReiThera started in Caserta, with exceptional testimonials such as the writer Enrico Carofiglio and the Rai journalist Geo Nocchetti.
But we need to find production centers and unlock licenses: in an appeal to Mattarella, a hundred local administrators asked the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella to take sides to stop the patents on anti Covid serums.