“Public health is not an ideological and bureaucratic problem. You have to have a calm and scientific approach.”
It is with these words, reported by the news site TG COM 24, that the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, justified the first measures taken in his post. On Monday, October 31, this member of the executive of Giorgia Meloni indeed unveiled several rule changes concerning the management of the Covid-19 pandemic, including The post reveals the contours.
“Through a decree, the government provides for the end of the vaccination obligation for the personnel of health structures”, explains the Italian news site, which specifies that this obligation should normally have ended on December 31. However, by anticipating this change, the executive will allow the immediate reinstatement of approximately 4,000 health workers who had been suspended because of their refusal to be vaccinated.
“With what criteria will they treat patients? ”
For the virology expert, Roberto Burioni, who speaks on the columns of the left-wing daily The Republic, “from a scientific point of view, this measure clearly makes sense”, because today “we are facing a much less dangerous virus than in the past, and we have much less effective vaccines to prevent infection”. Nevertheless, according to Burioni, a major problem remains in this measure and it is rather of a moral order:
“Healthcare workers who have refused the vaccine in the past made a decision that was totally in contrast to the scientific data that was available. And if they refused to follow the science, with what criteria will they treat the patients once reinstated? ”
More broadly, the expert fears that “this decision may unintentionally contribute to the narrative that portrays vaccines as unnecessary, even dangerous,” and in this sense, many newspapers denounce another choice made by the government of Giorgia Meloni: that of suspending fines for people over 50 who have refused to submit to compulsory vaccination.
A commission of inquiry into the management of the pandemic
Is the executive thus in the process of accommodating an antivax electorate who would have rather voted for the right during these elections?
In any case, this is what Tomorrow which recalls that the government should soon establish a commission of inquiry into the management of the pandemic. “It’s a helping hand to the antivax galaxy, denounces the progressive media, which speaks, of a strategy aimed at satisfying those who have challenged the management of the health crisis.”
A health crisis which, however, is not over, as the executive knows very well, which has also taken the important decision to renew the obligation to wear a mask in hospitals and retirement homes. An important signal of continuity, despite Giorgia Meloni’s stated desire to change the approach to the pandemic compared to its predecessors.