Covid vaccine and school, not even a dose for 1.2 million over 12

Lights and shadows on the Covid vaccine in school-age children. The Gimbe Foundation has published the report ‘Covid-19 safety in schools: from scientific evidence to the real world’ from which several critical issues emerge. “67.2% of the population aged 12-19 (3,064,055) completed the vaccination cycle and 5.5% (249,401) received the first dose. The children who did not receive even one dose of the vaccine were 1,243 .466 (27.3%), with percentages of unvaccinated people ranging from 19.6% in the Sardinia Region to 43.8% in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. Moreover, the trend of vaccination coverage with at least one dose in the 12- 19 years, after the sharp increase at the beginning of June, it gradually slowed down starting from September, when the value was still below 70% “. “The scientific evidence – says Nino Cartabellotta, president of the Gimbe Foundation – on the one hand shows that there is no zero risk of contagion in schools, on the other it suggests that it is possible to minimize it through a multifactorial approach by integrating different individual and environmental prevention interventions” . According to the data of the weekly report of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Iss), in the period 4-17 October 2021, 8,857 cases were diagnosed in the age group 0-19 years, of which 99 hospitalized, 3 hospitalizations in intensive care and no deaths, with a progressive reduction – in the last 4 weeks considered by the ISS report – in the incidence of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations. “These data – says Renata Gili, Gimbe Head of Health Services Research – show that so far no the feared ‘school effect’ occurred, both thanks to the vaccination of students and school staff, and to the progressive vaccination coverage of the general population: the consequent reduction in viral circulation is reflected in the school environment, even in pupils under 12 for whom there are no authorized vaccines yet. One more reason to reach as many unvaccinated people as possible and speed up the administration of third doses “.