Covid masks, who should use them and where: advice from Galli, Gismondo, Bassetti

The Minister of Health Speranza signed the ordinance extending the obligation to wear masks in hospital and RSA until 31 October. As for buses, trains, metro, from tomorrow it will no longer be essential to use them. Meanwhile, covid infections increase in Italy with Rt and incidence rising in the last week. How is it best to behave? Who better wear them anyway and where? From Bassetti to Gismondo and Vaia, this is how the experts think. Read also Bassetti “Maintain the obligation of the mask in the hospital and in the RSA to allow access to all visitors. Stop to tampons, green pass, fever measurement and various forms to let them in”. This was underlined on Twitter by the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti commended the ordinance signed by the Minister of Health extending the obligation of masks in health facilities to 31 October. Gismondo “In crowded environments, the elderly and the frail would do well to wear masks” as a voluntary personal protection measure against Covid-19 and other winter viruses, including those of the flu which, according to forecasts, will be worse this year ‘. Maria Rita Gismondo, director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bio-emergency diagnostics at the Sacco Hospital in Milan, underlined this at Adnkronos Salute. Vaia “No alarm, the Italians are ready to take off their masks. The WHO director general said that we are at the tail of the pandemic. Citizens will be responsible”. Thus the general director of the Inmi Spallanzani of Rome, Francesco Vaia, guest of ‘Uno Mattina’ on Rai1, answering the question if the Italians are ready to remove the masks on the means of transport from 1 October. Ricciardi “The use of masks in closed and crowded rooms frequented by fragile people must be made mandatory until the pandemic is over, both to protect patients and staff. In England, where 200 thousand operators have been removed for a year have Long Covid “, says Walter Ricciardi, professor of hygiene at the Catholic University of Rome, in a tweet. Minelli “If we were to identify which of all the restrictive measures in the anti-Covid sample of the last 2 and a half years penalized us the least from a social point of view, it would be automatic to think of the mask. A hygienic and health support that has proved useful and bearable at the most critical moment. Continuing to carry it in your pocket and use it when needed, in particularly crowded public places, on means of transport or in health facilities, can be a personal choice that by now we could also escape the disciplinary mechanisms of this or that measure government “, highlights the immunologist Mauro Minelli, head of the Foundation for personalized medicine for Southern Italy, to Adnkronos Salute. “In short, we cannot continue with the festival ‘here yes, here no’. Let’s say once and for all that the mask helps, defends, protects, is a good ally and should be considered as such”, remarks the immunologist. Galli “There is no doubt that it is useful to keep masks in hospitals and RSAs. Wearing them to visit a relative seems to me to be the minimum necessary.” Massimo Galli, former director of the infectious diseases department of the Sacco hospital in Milan, told Adnkronos Salute. “We are in a transition phase, with infections starting to increase. And prudence is always the best way. The problem – underlined the infectious disease specialist – is to understand if in places such as the means of transport it is really prudent to abolish the mask, also because using public transport is not always a free choice, like going to the cinema or the theater, but necessary. And for the fragile, these spaces, without more containment measures, can still represent a risk. In any case, people directly affected will have to be more careful and continue to use the mask “, concluded Galli.