Green pass Italy, Galli: “Quick pads valid for more than 24 hours are not good”

Mandatory green pass in Italy, quick swabs valid for over 24 hours are not good, according to Massimo Galli. The infectious specialist enters into the merits of the limits of rapid antigenic swabs, in the spotlight in these days of debates on how these tools should be declined in the current phase of the Covid epidemic in Italy, with infections on the rise. That there is a percentage of Sars-CoV-2 positive that is not detected by rapid swabs, be it 50% or 30%, “is not a new finding. It is known that the sensitivity of antigenic swabs, and their use to discriminate against the risk of being infected at the moment of making them is an important question. To assess whether a person is safe for 72, 48 hours or less, these tampons are not good, especially in a situation like that that we are experiencing now “underlines Galli to Adnkronos Salute. The classic swab is “of greater guarantee. But the moral is that neither test can be considered a substitute, an acceptable substitute for vaccine speech and what to do with prophylaxis”. “The situations must also be distinguished: if one has to enter a public place the negativity of a quick swab, even if it may not be 100% reliable, it tells you that even if it is infected it is with a low viral load and therefore it is unlikely that it is the cause of infection. It is one thing, and this completely changes, if this swab is kept valid for a certain number of hours or days. This no longer guarantees that any initial infection is not advanced and that the viral load does not is raised to the point of becoming potentially infectious “, says the specialist, former professor of infectious diseases at the State University of Milan. For a quick antigenic swab, he continues, “a validity of 24 hours or so is estimated. But in reality it is not something that anyone has ever measured accurately. There are works emerging but they are not able to measure. that type of duration. The classic swab, on the other hand, identifies an infection even with a very low viral load and in this case excludes from the possibility of contacts people who may have even a very light infection, perhaps not able to infect at that moment , but in the following days potentially yes. The classic buffer is a greater guarantee. Obviously there is a problem of higher costs and organizational needs “. The super Green pass for vaccinated or cured only? “What is being done in half of Europe at the moment seems to me even more drastic than the proposals proposed so far in Italy – says Galli – We are facing a worsening situation in which obviously there are some realities that we must necessarily face. we want to keep the country open and able to walk, as is in everyone’s interest, we cannot go on allowing a minority of people to continue to keep the country in check, because they don’t get vaccinated. stiffen the concept of the Green pass or pass directly to the approval of the mandatory nature, with limits obviously linked to the fact that you make the law and then you must be in a position to enforce it “. Or super Green pass or vaccination obligation, there are not many alternatives, is the specialist’s message. “With regard to certain categories, there is little to discuss about the obligation to be vaccinated – he explains to Adnkronos Salute – We need to be more flexible only on the concept of what to do with those cured with antibodies, because there is sometimes a cost-benefit ratio. there is no vaccination, neither at the society level nor at the individual level. The other discourse concerns a minority of people and it is a discourse which, however, if addressed, avoids conflicts and problems. Then there is everything else: if we fail to reduce the spread of the infection in the general population, we will continue to have serious problems “.