“Why have I always been available for interviews and agreed to go on TV during the Covid-19 pandemic? Because I think it’s useful to communicate, people want to know. And in the end it is not true that the rumors “of the scientists on TV” are conflicting, this is a false myth “. This is the thought of the virologist Andrea Crisanti, who thus comments on time.news Salute on one of the passages from the book that General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, extraordinary commissioner for the coronavirus emergency, wrote with the journalist Beppe Severgnini (published by Rizzoli and out tomorrow with the title ‘An Italian – What life taught me to face the greatest challenge’).
Figliuolo also dedicates a few words to virologists and says he “thought that certain scenes we could, and should, spare ourselves. They didn’t help people understand”. According to the commissioner, perhaps these experts, “many of whom are very talented, have been a bit neglected in the scientific field. Not because virology is a minor discipline” but, he adds, “the general public did not even know who a virologist was”, and ” the sudden fame made human and natural contrasts emerge in the scientific world “. For Crisanti this conflict between the experts on TV “on a lot of issues is a false myth. But I will only express myself once all this topic is closed, and when the Bergamo expert report has come out”, he says referring to the investigation ongoing (in which Crisanti was consultant to the prosecutor’s office) on the management of the initial phases of the pandemic in one of the first areas of Italy affected by the virus.
“In any case – observes the director of the Department of Molecular Medicine of the University of Padua – everyone can write what they like. I have always refrained from writing books. I have written only one, linked more than anything else to the scientific nature” of the pandemic, “so what do you want me to say? Everyone can do what they like, of course. And I don’t start making stupid polemics. I don’t care.”
Likewise Crisanti shows himself “not interested” in “conspiracy and conspiracy”. He says this by referring to another passage in Figliuolo’s book, in which the author observes that the AstraZeneca anti-Covid vaccine did not benefit from the ten different recommendations in 6 months that concerned him. “It was an effective vaccine and had some small problems that could be easily solved – admits Crisanti – but you can’t do conspiracy or conspiracy, it wouldn’t make sense”.
As for the virus and pandemic topic that ended up in media darkness overnight, canceled by the drama that Ukraine is experiencing, Crisanti observes: “The topic has not been silenced, it has silenced itself because, again, it is a problem of supply and demand. People are interested “in other now” rather than the virus. That’s right. So it depends on the emergency situation and you choose who to listen to. ”