2023-07-05 16:50:19
Remove the rules still in force against covid for people positive for the virus: the request came from the Fto, the Organized Tourism Federation, which wrote to the Minister of Health Schillaci and the Minister of Tourism Santanché. From Matteo Bassetti to Pier Luigi Lopalco and Maria Rita Gismondo and Fabrizio Pregliasco: experts are divided on this hypothesis.
Bassetti
“Continuing to have isolation, if positive for Covid, at 5 days and then making people give up their holidays doesn’t make a great sense. The virus today is profoundly different. If one needs to receive assistance, he goes to the hospital and it will follow certain rules, but if one goes on vacation and symptomatically tests positive, it seems absurd to me to continue to maintain this type of regulation. Also because we are the last country in Europe”. So the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti at time.news Salute.
“We have an atavistic problem as a country: it takes 5 minutes to put in place a rule and it takes years to remove it – remarked Bassetti – Also from this point of view for the future we need to try to simplify more and therefore I hope that Minister Schillaci will quickly simplify this step, because the risk is that of appearing ridiculous.Basically, still having these rules today with the mandatory isolation of 5 days, which means that a hotel must put you in isolation or that you cannot travel or that you must be refunded, it seems to me a rather absurd thing”.
“We have now come out of the emergency – underlines the infectious disease specialist – Covid is an infection like many others and like many others it must be treated. Just as we do not have the obligation of isolation for the flu, we do not have it for other infectious and contagious diseases for the respiratory tract and I believe that the same must also apply to Covid. All measures are taken away but not in 6 months, tomorrow, to avoid bad summer figures”.
gismondo
“Revoking the rule that still provides for the isolation of Covid positives is a bureaucratic obligation, because maintaining it today is truly ridiculous”. This is the thought of Maria Rita Gismondo, director of the laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and diagnostics of bio-emergencies at the Sacco hospital in Milan.
“I don’t think that anyone, when sneezing or a few lines of fever, takes a Covid swab – observes Gismondo – and that no one, if they know they are positive for the virus, does the 5 days of isolation, as indeed they do not for the flu”. The rule that still prescribes them “I think should be interpreted as one of the many measures forgotten in the drawer, in the bureaucratic maze”. A measure that, the expert points out, “no longer makes sense and no one respects”.
Lopalco
Overcome the isolation obligation for people who have contracted Covid? “At the moment it seems to me more of an ideological request. In practice, the use of swabs and disease surveillance are at historic lows and I doubt that they will have an impact on tourist flows. Let us also not forget that for all diseases infectious there are notification and isolation obligations in case of positivity “, the epidemiologist Pier Luigi Lopalco, professor of hygiene at the University of Salento, tells time.news Salute.
For Lopalco “it is right to adjust the control measures but it is very wrong to try to erase Covid from the collective memory. The virus is still there and there are people who continue to get infected and die from it”, he concludes.
Minelli
“While considering the recall of tour operators, particularly affected and damaged by the social effects of the pandemic, legitimate, I suggest finding intuitively simple ways to compensate for the possible elimination of social restrictions for positives, for example by requiring the use of the Ffp2 mask for those positive subjects who should come into contact with other individuals in public facilities”. Thus Mauro Minelli, clinical immunologist of the Personalized Medicine Foundation.
“The real limit – he underlines – remains the lack of prudence, not the limitations imposed which, if correctly understood and appropriately adapted to the times, can always prove useful. The fact that journalistic information no longer deals with Covid and its surroundings does not mean that the risks of contagion are today to be considered non-existent. And referring to prudence as a behavioral attitude, especially in broader social contexts, does not mean recalling untimely prohibitionist practices”.
I prefer
“I think it’s time for this freedom now. The hope however, and it’s not an easy thing, is that there is also responsibility, that those who are not well avoid spreading the infection”. So Fabrizio Pregliasco, virologist at the State University of Milan.
“We should do a bit what we saw oriental tourists do in the past: if I’m sick, if I have an infection, I put on a mask to protect others”, explains the expert to time.news Salute. “I would therefore rely on a great deal of responsibility, because the virus is with us and will remain with us – Pregliasco is keen to point out – however it is true that certain provisions are now disregarded: a large number of Covid-positive cases are not actually notified and the end ‘paying the price’ are the most careful”, loyal to the rules still in force.
Letter photo
“In a letter sent to the Ministers of Tourism, Daniela Santanchè, and of Health, Orazio Schillaci, we asked to remove a limitation inherited from the pandemic that still remains in force: we are talking about five days of isolation, plus ten of the obligation to wear FFP2 mask, on those who test positive for a Covid swab”, said Gabriele Milani, national director of the Organized Tourism Federation of Confcommercio. “It is a measure that in the hardest phase of the virus had important results in terms of defense of public health – continues Milani – but today it no longer appears justified. And in fact it is almost totally disregarded. On the other hand, these limitations were envisaged when the health situation was completely different from today. It is no coincidence that the other EU states have already removed isolation and quarantine last year and, most recently, France on February 1. It goes without saying that the WHO definitively declared the health emergency closed on May 5 and that, as far as we know, Italy is the only country to have maintained the isolation obligation for Covid positives “.
The director of Fto argued again, addressing the ministers Santanchè and Schillaci: “It is an obligation that represents a critical issue for our companies. In fact, the Tourism Code regulates the withdrawal from the tourist package contract: the rules provide that the ill or injured traveler can withdraw at any time, but must pay the organizer the withdrawal costs indicated in the agreement. There are travelers who ask to withdraw without penalties in case of positivity from Covid and without stipulating any policy to cover the same cancellation penalties, thus offloading on the package organizer any costs applied by the suppliers in the event that the customer renounces the holiday for fault of the virus and the consequent obligation of isolation “.
“We are also notified of critical issues and difficulties by agencies and accommodation facilities, which have to manage cases of positivity from foreign customers on holiday in Italy, incredulous that the isolation obligation is still in force here. This is why – he concluded – some provisions must be removed with the same promptness with which they were introduced: we consider it necessary to align the Italian legislation with the rest of the EU and with the current health context, also taking into account that the regulation also expired on 1 July on the green pass and interoperable digital certificates of vaccination, testing and recovery can no longer be issued”.
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