“Making positive health workers work with three doses in Covid wards”

“The pressure on hospitals is growing exponentially”, and since “we are in a moment of emergency we have to think in terms of emergency: doctors and nurses positive for Covid-19 swab, but asymptomatic and with three doses of vaccine done , I believe they can work in the Covid departments. Providing quarantine and isolation at this time is useless and harmful to the system “. Word of Nino Mazzone, director of the Department of Medicine, chronicity and continuity of care at Asst Ovest Milanese, who “from the front line” entrusts Adnkronos Sallute with a strong proposal “to face the new epidemic wave” pushed by the Omicron variant. Specialist in internal medicine, hematology, clinical immunology and allergology, in November 2020 Mazzone found himself hospitalized for Covid in the ward he directs at the Legnano hospital and since then he has been among the leaders of a ‘counter-current’: “I recovered from Covid- 19 should not be vaccinated – he argues – because they develop a dramatically different immunity from vaccinated people, a robust, long-lasting and high-level protection “. A position supported by “various scientific evidences” repeatedly mentioned by the expert, as well as by a study published by his own team in ‘Jama Internal Medicine’ and commented by a member of the Jama board of editors. To the thesis that he still repeats today, Mazzone now adds another appeal: to allow the Covid-positive tri-vaccinated and asymptomatic healthcare professionals to work in the wards that assist patients infected with Sars-CoV-2. “This would make it possible to recover resources in a difficult time, freeing doctors and nurses to operate non-Covid wards, the medical area and surgery,” he explains. Noting that, “unlike the first waves, the current situation is much more worrying”. “The pressure on hospitals grows exponentially, significantly stressing first aid and consequently all internal medicines, fundamental departments in emergency management”, testifies the head physician, vice president of FISM (Federation of Italian medical and scientific societies), listing the reasons that should lead us to fear – now more than ever – for the health system to be stable. “The total number of people to be hospitalized is minimal in percentage terms – this is the first reflection – but the total of positives grows exponentially, therefore in absolute value the number of Covid hospitalized internal medicine is reaching the number of the peaks of the first waves “. Mazzone then confirms that “the major responsibility” for this burden on hospitals “remains to be attributed to the no vax range, especially as regards the severe manifestations of pneumonia which requires intubation”. And if it is true that “a number of vaccinated patients are hospitalized in internal medicine with severe pathologies and polypathologies, going to see specifically – specifies the doctor – a percentage of these cases that also evolve negatively are theoretically vaccinated, but have not developed a response “to immunization, or” because the vaccine did not work on them or because they are unable to develop an immune response. “” These patients had to be intercepted first “, remarked the specialist, stigmatizing” blind vision which has not allowed us to study serology and to see in some settings whether the patient has responded to the vaccination or not. A lack that has produced these ‘theoretical vaccinates’ who fall ill “. While “on the other hand – he assures – even in this fourth wave we have not been hospitalized who have previously undergone Covid, who, as we have always maintained, should not have been vaccinated because according to the available data, natural immunity protects more than the vaccine”. “The continuing pressure on hospitals” in this fourth wave of Covid-19 in Italy, continues Mazzone’s analysis, “is due to the fact that, while in the first waves the flow of non-Covid patients had substantially reduced, and hospitals had largely converted into Covid facilities, keeping the same beds for better or worse, today the number of patients accessing the emergency rooms and internal medicines has remained the same. Therefore accesses doubled with difficulty, especially for non-patients. Covid, to find an appropriate hospitalization. In this context, internal medicines remain in extreme distress, having to manage Covid and non-Covid patients “. Finally,” another aspect that was not present in the first waves was the number of positive doctors and nurses “. Hence the chief physician’s proposal: “I believe that the health workers who are positive to Sars-CoV-2 and asymptomatic, who have received three doses of vaccine, can work in the Covid wards. This – Mazzone is convinced – would allow to recover resources, guarantee assistance to anyone who needs it and avoid tilt “.