Covid Italy, Bassetti and misinformation on the vaccine: what he said

2023-10-24 13:39:39

Matteo Bassetti has never been an alarmist but raised the alarm about the risk of a new increase in Covid pneumonia in Italy, due to the misinformation there is on the need to do the annual booster of the vaccine against the Sars-Cov-2 virus , this time it’s him.

“After many months – the director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa tells time.news Salute – here is an 80-year-old lady in the ward, a convinced anti-vaxer and therefore not vaccinated, who is dying despite all the treatments more appropriate for severe Covid pneumonia, as we have not seen, I must say, for a long time. Together with you in these days, there are many over 70-80s and the super-fragile hospitalized with Covid pneumonia because they have not had booster doses (the so-called fourth or fifth doses). To these – says Bassetti – I make a strong appeal to have both vaccines, against the flu and against Covid. Unfortunately there is still a lot of misinformation on the subject, the result of the terrorism carried out by some against Covid vaccines”.

For this reason Bassetti tries to clarify: “Those who have had the complete vaccination cycle are unlikely to be affected by serious forms. Unfortunately today – states the infectious disease specialist – I hear from many people ‘ah we do the anti-flu, but the anti-Covid we’re not doing it because we’ve already done it.” This argument doesn’t apply. Let’s know that not getting vaccinated against Covid today is exactly like having had a flu shot three years ago. Those who got vaccinated in 2021 and then didn’t get boosters, is in this situation. Be careful, therefore, because for people over 70 and for the most fragile – warns the doctor – Covid can still remain a serious problem which can lead to hospitalization for truly demanding forms and can also lead to death. The fact that we say that Covid is no longer a problem for the majority of the population does not mean that it is not a problem for older people and the most fragile people – Bassetti remarks – I hope that those over 70 or is fragile, go for the booster vaccination for Covid in these days”.