Vaccine 5-11 years, Vaia: “I don’t see the need for healthy children”

For the vaccine for children between 5 and 11 years, “the point is always the calculation between risks and benefits. Any drug can give side effects, the correct strategy is to avoid the risk when, even if low, it is not essential. If a child he already has other serious diseases of his own, it is better to vaccinate him, to protect him from a virus that, associated with other diseases, can prove to be serious. If he is healthy, I see no need to vaccinate him. At least given today’s situation, then things can always As for the risk of myocarditis, cases are rare and myocarditis in a child can also come as a result of a long-Covid “. This was said to Libero Francesco Vaia, director of Spallanzani in Rome, the National Institute for Infectious Diseases, explaining that “children have a less intense social life than adults, they attend public transport little or not at all, they are mostly in environments protected where everyone is vaccinated, like schools. It is said that children are infected and also others, but analyzing the data it cannot be said that at the moment their impact on the spread of the virus is strong. Vaccinate children to protect the elderly ? Social solidarity from those under the age of twelve borders on ideology and fanaticism. The vaccine should not be given to children to prevent them from infecting adults, but only if they are fragile of them “. According to Vaia” we focus too much on no vax, which are a minority. Rather, it would be necessary to push the tablet on the third dose, in the fragile population groups, in the over 80s, in health professionals, in those who have relations with the public, and above all to convince those who have not completed the vaccination cycle, still too many. In Italy 85% of people are immunized: it is easier to persuade them to undergo a third injection, rather than having someone vaccinated who has not yet done so, unless we think of courageous actions of obligation for groups of the population . But this action will necessarily have to be accompanied by others that regain the citizens’ trust in the vaccine tool that I feel vacillating these days ”. “We must give public opinion certainty – continues the expert – that those who get vaccinated do not do a courtesy to anyone but themselves and their relatives and friends. We love each other and we love our loved ones, this is the true meaning (I recall my #Miamo campaign, supported by many artists). We must explain well that prophylaxis is bringing important results and that the third dose is not taken to empty warehouses or to make pharmaceutical companies gain but because it saves lives “.” However – underlines Vaia – it is wrong to describe the vaccine as a magic potion, which transforms you into Superman or Superwoman, because then when a vaccinated gets sick – it happens – the whole narrative collapses and the no vaxes laugh, indeed we give them a lot of wood to burn. And, if you allow me, arguments for debates that are sometimes surreal. The first two doses have served incontrovertibly to protect the population so far, but have a waning effectiveness, which after six to eight months drops a lot and does it faster the more a person is elderly or frail. However, let us remember that if from May Italy can be considered among the countries that best fight the virus, it is because the vaccination campaign was a success, as recognized all over the world. “The current rise in cases, according to Vaia, is due in part of the vaccine’s loss of efficacy in those who underwent it in January-February, “but also to seasonality: this is a predominantly respiratory disease, which therefore explodes in autumn and winter, when people live more indoors and temperatures are more rigid predispose more. And then perhaps there was a legitimate drop in tension, after a year in lockdown following months in which things went very well. There is perhaps too much relaxation and we omit behaviors that are necessary to avoid transmission contagion. The enemy is on the ropes but we still have to defeat him. We will do it but never underestimate him “.” There are five to six thousand cases – continues the infectious Sponentiality much lower than in autumn 2020, we are light years away from those numbers. But there are two actions to be taken absolutely for the situation to improve further and I hope definitively. The first is the extension of the vaccination obligation to all categories of workers who have relations with the public. Not only doctors, professors and those who work in catering, but also those who work in large and small distribution, you journalists, those who drive buses or make politics. The second proposal concerns communication. We live in a paradox: people want to understand but they do not explain themselves much, thus playing the no vax game, because where there is bad communication, confusion first arises and then suspicions; finally, the conspiracy theories. We are throwing the baby away with the bath water, giving the feeling that those who impose the Green pass are not doing it to encourage vaccination and therefore to secure the country but to chase political and industrial interests. The government should be committed to doing a very strong operation of persuasion towards the pharmaceutical companies to update the vaccines and structure them on the new variants. We need to remodel vaccines and say so, just give the feeling that we vaccinate to dispose of the stocks. I know this is not the case but this unpleasant sensation is often felt. It is useless to chase after a herd immunity that will never exist, in an obsessive search for numerical performance. It doesn’t matter how many citizens have been inoculated but how many are really protected. To say that 90% of people are vaccinated means nothing, it is like mixing pears with apples: vaccinated with what, when, how many times? ”. “It is wrong – he adds – in terms of communication to talk about the third or fourth dose. As I have said several times, we must not get to cappuccino, croissant and vaccine. Woe to give this feeling! Better to say that every year, especially those who belong to categories fragile or exposed, will have to have a booster with a vaccine a little different from the previous one, just like the elderly who offer their arm for a flu shot every autumn. There are well-established studies that clearly show that this disease will be seasonal with annual calls until, as happened with others, it disappears completely “. Vaccines aside, Vaia concludes, “today we are very advanced on treatments: monoclonals, if used in time, solve the problem in a very high percentage, more than 95 percent. Then now the second generation ones are coming, designed by Professor Rappuoli a Siena, and that we are also experimenting at Spallanzani and they will be produced in Italy, here in Lazio: we are also considering using them as a preventive function on those who have not responded to the vaccine and are poorly protected according to antibody tests “.