Delta variant, Ricciardi: “Keep distance and mask”

Against the Delta variant, “vaccines alone are not enough: due to its contagiousness and the fact that it is difficult to achieve vaccination coverage of 90/95% which would allow to obtain population immunity, it is necessary to adopt all behavioral precautions. and institutional aimed at avoiding a further epidemic wave “. This was written by Walter Ricciardi, consultant to the Minister of Health for the coronavirus emergency and professor of Hygiene at the Catholic University of Rome, in an editorial in ‘Avvenire’. For this “from an individual point of view – continues Ricciardi – respect for the safety distance, washing and disinfecting hands and the use of masks when distance cannot be guaranteed, both outdoors, but especially indoors. , are behavioral pillars that will accompany us also in the second half of the year and that should not be abandoned superficially. ” Riscciardi explains that “the Indian variant, which is now beginning to circulate also in Italy in a widespread way, will be dominant at that time and its characteristics of contagiousness are such that crowding of public transport and the lack of caution inside closed environments, especially school ones, must be absolutely avoided, which would translate into a surge in cases “.” A second point crucial – he underlines – is the caution in travel and movement, last year the epidemic was started by thousands of children who had gone on vacation to countries like Gre cia, Spain and Croatia, which in order to attract tourists had abandoned all caution. Many of them returning to Italy had infected friends and relatives in the nightlife squares, in discos and, above all, inside their homes. The impact of this superficiality has been disastrous, this time we should avoid it ”. ” The third condition, perhaps the most important and decisive in the fight against coronavirus, is the availability of safe and effective vaccines that last year we could only hope to have – he adds – The vaccination campaign is proceeding at a discreet pace and if it is further accelerated the dominant variants will find a population, especially in the most vulnerable groups, protected and immune, and this will ease the pressure on health services and allow not to take measures of last resort such as the lockdown. For this it is necessary to quickly reach the over three million people over 60 who are not yet vaccinated and for this it is essential a greater and more homogeneous involvement of general practitioners who have also developed an algorithm able to identify and reach, even in the of the country, the citizens still uncovered. ” Finally, a consideration: ” We arrive in summer in an epidemiological condition quantitatively similar to that of last year, but there are different reasons-conditions to ensure that winter are not the same as in 2020 and early 2021, with a second and third wave of epidemics causing more sickness and deaths than the first. First of all, we should not make the same mistakes as last year and use the summer months not only for holidays, but also for preparing for the school and work resumption of the autumn ”.