“The intense three-year fight against Covid that has just ended represented a decisive watershed for the country and its National Health Service: after the hospitalization of the Chinese tourist couple on January 29, 2020, nothing would have been the same again. We have opened up new paths, demonstrating that high-performance healthcare oriented towards the protection of the person is possible. A health system therefore that is not only able to defeat a virus, but also to take care of the population”. This was stated by the director general of Inimi Spallanzani in Rome, Francesco Vaiapresenting the three-year report 2020-2022 ‘Three years at the service of the person’.
“Crucial and difficult years, during which the Institute proved to be a true bulwark for our country in the fight against the pandemic and represented Italy in the world in the field of infectious diseases, projecting beyond national borders – Vaia underlined – The first patients affected by the virus were hospitalized here; here, for the first time in Italy, Sars-CoV-2 was isolated; here new organizational and clinical management models, experimental therapies, new methods and testing tools have been implemented”.
Optimism prevails today on Covid. “A rational optimism, ours, which today, three years after the start of the pandemic, we can say justified – continued the director of Spallanzani – so much so that we are now talking about Covid-23: also thanks to the hybrid immunity acquired through vaccines and natural infection, the virus is no longer the same and, although not yet underestimated, it will increasingly controllable, like other seasonal respiratory viruses”.
“Since the first days of the pandemic – remarked Vaia – our effort was aimed at maintaining the awareness that we could have done itwithout ever underestimating the enemy, but also without ever giving in to the catastrophism that unfortunately so much damage, especially of a psychological nature, has created in the country, especially in the most fragile segments”.