Stop outdoor masks, Brusaferro: “If contagions come back, forced to put them back on”

Via the outdoor masks from Monday 28 June if there are no gatherings. But “if the infections go back we will be forced to put them back”. This was stated in an interview with ‘La Repubblica’ by Silvio Brusaferro, president of the Higher Institute of Health and also secretary of the Cts. Speaking of the situation of the epidemic in Italy, Brusaferro explains that “the monitoring systems look at incidence, transmissibility, that is the RT and circulation of variants. The first two above all are indicators of how the epidemic is moving. Last Friday’s report. he told us that for now the situation allows to remove “the masks. “We have only 11 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants in 7 days nationwide”. “Monitoring allows us to understand how the situation evolves and, if anything, to intervene, even by reintroducing measures”, explains Brusaferro, answering a question whether the loosening on the masks is destined to remain. As for the Delta variant, it is fearful for “its greater transmissibility. , which facilitates its spread especially where there are non-immunized sections of the population; in Italy too it is causing outbreaks. For these characteristics, the European models say that it will become dominant during the summer “. Cases in Italy “are decreasing in absolute terms but those sustained by the Delta variant are rising”, explains Brusaferro. “The British data show that vaccination with one dose protects less than the full cycle. We know that vaccination, even with one dose, can already be effective in reducing severe clinical forms. But only the complete cycle guarantees greater safety “, says the president of the ISS. The vaccinated who contracts the infection “we must assume that he can transmit it. So whoever contracts the infection must consider himself as a person who can infect others”. Against the Delta variant the second dose is more protective “and reaches the best level of protection one week after administration”. In the future we may be faced with other variants, “and we must be prepared to take a census of them and, for the most dangerous ones, to control their spread. For this reason, more tools are adopted, including periodic prevalence studies”.