The reopening risks “another 50 thousand deaths” by January 2022, “which rise to 90 thousand with slow vaccinations”. This is the estimate of a group of Italian scientists in ‘Nature Medicine’, in an analysis in which 35 different scenarios were considered corresponding to 7 vaccination plans and 5 containment strategies. Also taking into account the impact of covid variants.
The message is clear: the restrictions and anti-contagion measures “have a greater effect on the trend of Covid-19 than vaccination alone”. And “they must be maintained during the first phase of the immunization campaign”. How much would it cost Italy to open everything? “By loosening containment”, reaching an R0 contagion index of 1.27, “with fast vaccinations another 50 thousand deaths are expected” by January 2022, “which rise to 90 thousand with slow vaccinations”. The best solution? Intermittent measurements, but starting with a closure. This was explained by a group of Italian scientists in ‘Nature Medicine’, in an analysis in which 35 different scenarios corresponding to 7 vaccination plans and 5 containment strategies were considered. Also taking into account the impact of Sars-CoV-2 variants.
The model, the study reads, “predicts that, from April 2021 to January 2022, in a scenario without vaccine launch and with weak non-pharmacological interventions (R0 1.27), 298 thousand deaths associated with Covid could occur. However, the ‘rapid implementation of vaccination could reduce mortality to 51,000 deaths. Implementing restrictive social measures (R0 0.9) could reduce Covid deaths to 30,000 without vaccinations and to 18,000 with a rapid introduction of vaccines “.
But – write the authors, scientists from the universities of Trento, Udine and Pavia, the Politecnico di Milano and the Policlinico San Matteo di Pavia – in the work “we also show that, if intermittent opening-closing strategies are adopted, starting first with a phase closure could reduce deaths (from 47 thousand to 27 thousand, with a slow introduction of the vaccine) and the costs of the health system, without a substantial worsening of socio-economic losses “. This strategy would have, writes on Twitter one of the authors, Giuseppe De Nicolao of the University of Pavia, “the same economic cost of opening-closing and saving at least 14 thousand lives”.
The study also has Raffaele Bruno among the authors, the infectious disease specialist of San Matteo di Pavia who treated the ‘patient 1’ of Codogno, Mattia Maestri. In the analysis, the experts note that “anti-Covid vaccination alone is not expected to be able to control the spread of the infection, and an immunization campaign coordinated with the continuous implementation of the anti-contagion measures until sufficient coverage is reached, such as to make Covid’s case fatality rate similar to that of seasonal flu “.