“The figure we have to look at is not so much the percentage of positives, as what is the load of the hospitals and by now have been downloading for 3 weeks“. Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, said this to Adnkronos Health, commenting on the latest data from the Higher Institute of Health and the Ministry of Health on the progress of Covid-19.
“In the last week – underlines Bassetti – if you look at the curve of people in hospital, it is a very steep descent: every day we have 70-80 fewer patients in intensive care, between 10 and 12% in a week of attendance. less, and the same can be said of the medium intensity so it means that hospitals are gradually emptying and are not filling up with new infections“.
There are new infections but – highlights the infectious disease specialist – it means that vaccination is starting to work: the age of the infected is lowered and therefore, if out of 100 eighty-year-olds went to hospital 20, out of 100 fifty-year-olds one goes to hospital . There will still be hospitalizations and we will continue to have them throughout the summer, but this – concludes Bassetti – is part of living with the virus. Let us remember that we did not take all these measures to avoid contagion in the population, but to prevent hospitals from collapsing “.
Recall at 42 days
Administer the second dose of Covid vaccines at mRna Pfizer and Modern 42 days later, he explains to Adnkronos, “it seems to me a measure of common sense. All the data tells us that already after 3 weeks from the first dose there is already an adequate degree of immunity, so basically the second dose only serves to maintain longer lasting immunity. I’d be pretty calm. “” In the same period – concludes Bassetti – we vaccinate twice as many people. If before you had vaccinated a million in those 21 days, now in 42 days you vaccinate 2 million “.
Manifesto no vax
‘Vaccine, if you know it you avoid it!’. This is the title of the poster that “was hung this morning on the walls of some neighborhoods in the city of Genoa”, then denounces Bassetti with a post on Facebook. “I find all this very serious, while the biggest vaccination campaign in history is taking place”, writes the expert, also publishing the photo of the flyer, who adds: “The most serious thing is that it is signed by a group of people who they define ‘Medical Committee for Freedom and Health’ “.
“Seeing the signing on that manifesto of some doctors, who support totally anti-scientific positions, must make us all reflect, but above all the institutions, which must take clear and clear positions against them”. Bassetti begins to take a stand: “In this sheet – he accuses – we find the synthesis of all the biggest nonsense said and circulated up to now on vaccines for Covid, as well as other statements on the uselessness of masks. Given the scientific evidence and as well as the social and economic convenience, it seems paradoxical that vaccination practice still encounters so much resistance “.
And “given the pervasiveness of the no-vax culture and the improper means through which it spreads (such as hanging posters on the street), a strong commitment on the field of the medical profession is necessary, not only episodic, but organic and capillary, to consolidate the culture of the exceptional sanitary validity of vaccines “, he adds.
It is not the first time that Bassetti thunders against the no-vax, which has also attracted attacks on him via social networks. “We must admit – he analyzes – that scientific awareness in Italian society is lower than that present in the rest of Europe. Surprisingly, this happens in spite of the many merits of Italian science and medicine, which have greatly contributed to the improvement of quality and extension. In the countries of Central and Northern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon-speaking countries, the sense of the state and the duties deriving from belonging to civil society are a fundamental aspect of coexistence. Only with a greater sense of belonging to civil society could we also improve adherence to vaccination “.
One of the problems that are emerging with alarming urgency with respect to science, and in particular to medicine “, continues the infectious disease specialist,” is the progressive weakening of the principle of scientific and professional authority. The progressive crumbling of the cultural bases, once provided by the school, pushes many to believe that a smattering of scientific scrambled up on various Internet sites or blogs can replace a long, tiring course of study “.
“Too many people – he concludes – now believe they can discuss everything and everything, and that their opinion is as valid as that of proven experts on the subject. Our society is evolving towards a world in which information of uncertain origin and reliability can be found. online, they replace canonical scientific sources and professional skills. In the health field, this leads to the spread of an incoherent ‘self-medication’, ready to discuss, contradict and disavow the work of the doctor “.