The director of the Institute of Pharmacological Research Mario Negri analyzes the progress of the pandemic and the Government’s initiatives: “Today there are two parallel diseases”
Professor Remuzzi, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said that “the invitation not to get vaccinated is equivalent to an invitation to die”. Do you agree?
«The sentence of the Prime Minister is technically flawless. Today there are two epidemics: that of the vaccinated and that of the unvaccinated. The first is comparable to a flu, the second is a life-threatening infection. An article in the Washington Post, where Roy Gulick, head of Infectious Diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, says 97% of those hospitalized for Covid have not been vaccinated. In confirmation of this we see that in Great Britain yesterday, compared to 36 thousand new daily infections, the dead were ‘only’ 64. On 20 January the infections were 38 thousand and the deaths 1,300. Vaccines licensed in Europe and the United States are extremely powerful in protecting against serious illness and death. On the contrary, we still don’t know how much they block infections, especially in light of the rapid spread of the Delta variant ».
What impact can the green pass have on the emergency exit path?
«It represents an incentive for those who are afraid of vaccines, as seen by the boom in reservations. We cannot convince the no-vax, but the undecided yes, and there are not a few. Those who speak of ‘limitation of freedom’ are wrong: even the driving license could be seen in this way, but we do not want a person who does not have one to drive the car, putting himself and others at risk. It would be important to extend the green pass to schools, giving a sort of ‘suitability’ to vaccinated teachers. In a pandemic, it is unthinkable that those who work in contact with other people are not protected ».
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has extended the use of the Moderna vaccine to the 12-17 age range. Is it okay to protect the kids?
«The mRna-based vaccines have proved to be very effective and safe in under 18. The cases of myocarditis and pericarditis (4 out of 100 thousand vaccinated) resolve spontaneously within a few days and there is no risk of complications. On the contrary, Covid in children can cause, albeit very rarely, the multisystemic inflammatory syndrome, which requires intensive care and can cause undesirable effects even after some time “.
How should women behave during pregnancy and breastfeeding?
“There are two fundamental reasons to say yes to vaccination during pregnancy: the first is that pregnant women have a reduced lung capacity due to the pressure exerted by the uterus and therefore risk a more serious disease (with double the probability of having to resort to assisted ventilation compared to other women). The second is that the immune system is weakened in pregnancy. Even when breastfeeding, the vaccine is recommended: there are antibodies in the mother’s milk that pass to the baby, even if we do not yet know how much they protect him ».
Should the green certificate also be adopted for public transport?
«On the means, if we follow the precautions we know, it is not so easy to get infected. The problem is overcrowding and it also applies to shops and offices. For a few years we will have to avoid crowds and work on ventilation indoors, for example in schools. An empirical and simple method could be the use of devices that measure the amount of Co2: when it is high, the concentrations of viruses will also be high, in case there are positive people. We must keep in mind that the Delta variant has a much higher transmission capacity than the previous ones, so it is possible that the so-called ‘super diffusers’ increase, people able to infect many others due to the large amount of viruses they harbor in the respiratory tract. The mask, as we know, protects against heavy droplets, those emitted for example by speaking, but not from the aerosol which is the main vehicle of contagion ».
What can we imagine for the next few months?
«Nobody knows but, if we don’t all get vaccinated, at the end of this phase we could have many deaths in Italy too. Not only. What is needed now is an effort to vaccinate around the world. Europe should join the forces of those who produce, inflate and distribute vaccines: a large virtual laboratory that must of course be governed and that brings together the know how of the main players. The virus keeps changing, but science goes on too. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are working on vaccines that protect against new variants and next-generation monoclonal antibodies may arrive. In San Diego, California, a research group has managed to make algae produce the Spike protein and it can also be done with genetically modified tobacco plants (the mutation affects only the leaves and therefore is not transmitted to subsequent generations). In this way it will be possible, in the future, to have large quantities of vaccine at low cost: a land of 12,500 square meters would be enough to produce sufficient doses for all Italians ».
July 24, 2021 (change July 24, 2021 | 11:05 am)
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