Reopenings, summer and masks: what the experts say

All of Italy in the yellow zone from today, the gyms are also reopening, and the eyes are on the summer, on how it will be, with the anti Covid vaccinations that have reached almost 31 million doses administered. The themes also include the use of the mask and the time when it will be possible to stop using the protective device. Pay attention to the ‘yellow effect’, a color that now characterizes the entire peninsula. “With the reopenings, a new growth in the contagion curve is also possible, if the necessary precautions are not taken” warns Fabrizio Pregliasco, virologist at the State University of Milan, who explains to Adnkronos Salute: “We have known a lot about this virus in little time, but it can still escape us, I believe that caution, systematicity and progression in opening is fundamental “. Attention is needed, explains Pregliasco, “because it is possible that there may not be a new wave but, more likely, a rising wave of infections”. It is mathematical “with the reopenings – he continues – contacts increase and therefore the probability of meeting a person positive for the virus. According to yesterday’s data, the positives in Italy were 281 thousand. This means that, at least, considering those not identified, they are at least double. So there are over half a million positive people who can be met with the greatest mobility. It is also possible that a vaccinated could be positive and could maintain a chain of contagion “. For all these reasons “it will therefore be possible to see a slight rise in the curve, depending on the progression of the openings, consequent to the number of contacts even if, fortunately, there will not be the same proportionality on serious cases thanks to vaccines”, says Pregliasco , inviting us not to abandon protective measures – distance, mask, hygiene – “this will gradually allow for greater freedom”. The arrival of heat and summer gives hope, as happened last year, for a respite from the virus. But “the heat alone is not enough, as we see for the many countries where, despite the high temperatures, the virus circulates because there are so many contacts. The climate is not a parameter that alone is enough” explains Pregliasco. “In summer it is the lower humidity that plays the greatest role, not the heat itself. And all the conditions, typical of the summer, which reduce the risk of close contacts and contagions, help more life in the air. open, closed schools, reductions in the opportunities for contagion in closed places “. Away with outdoor masks from mid-July? “It seems realistic to me as a forecast. Today, however, would be soon.” Word of Andrea Crisanti. The virologist sees as “plausible” the date suggested by the president of the Higher Council of Health (Css) and coordinator of the Technical Scientific Committee (Cts) for the Covid emergency, Franco Locatelli, in order to address the topic, very much felt by the population, of a loosening on the front of individual protections, with the approaching summer. When we can leave the masks, the director of the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Padua explains to Adnkronos Salute, “it depends on how many people get vaccinated”. And in Italy the number of immunized people is growing at a rapid pace in this phase. Over 30 million vaccines have been administered, and more than 10 million compatriots have complete immunization. But for Crisanti these numbers are still not enough: “It is too early to talk about loosening the rules on masks – he specifies – because this threshold” of vaccinated people “still seems low to me, given that we are not even half of the population covered. time and thinking that the right time to remove the masks arrives in mid-July seems to me quite realistic “. All of Italy in the yellow zone, the number of Covid deaths reaching minimum peaks, the lowest in 2021. “What do these data tell us? They make us think that what has been done so far is correct”, admits the virologist , who has always been among the most cautious experts. And in fact, when asked whether the pandemic can be said to be closed and can be pushed definitively on openings, he points out: “As for the future, I don’t know. The future is difficult to decipher. That the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus will become endemic I think there is no doubt. In some countries it has become. In others there is nothing like Australia, China, New Zealand, and I think these countries will try not to make it endemic to their territories. It is still early to define the future, we will see how vaccinations proceed “. There are those who postpone, those who are afraid of the single vaccine, those who are not convinced, those who do not want to do it, those who do not think about it. Adding up the various age groups, the numbers of those who have not yet booked for the anti-Covid vaccination are not low. “But there is a part of people who do not want the vaccine and a part that simply has not connected to the portal to book it. If you do not start the family doctors, you will not have capillary pressure. as soon as possible “reiterates the virologist, looking at the data of those who have not yet set an appointment for the vaccine, over a million between 60-69 year olds according to what the Corriere della Sera reports today. “The crux is not the no vax, because many are not and this is not the reason why they have not fixed the vaccine – the director of the Department of Molecular Medicine of the University of Padua tells Adnkronos Health – I am thinking of my mother-in-law that she would not have been able to book it on her own if it hadn’t been for my sister-in-law. In general, there are people who need help, others who need to be directed, motivated. “. “Surely from this second wave” of coronavirus “we are practicing outside” says Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, to Adnkronos Salute. “There are now so few admissions to the hospital that in practice the hospitals have to empty the cases taken in charge in the previous months. So we are putting the second wave completely behind us. Now, however – warns Bassetti – everything must be done within October, when we will certainly have new cases because this virus, we have learned, has a seasonal pattern, to get there with the weakest population 100% vaccinated “.” Herd immunity – remembers the infectious specialist – tells us that we must reach 70% of the general population vaccinated. It is okay if we reach 70% of the general population, but we must reach 100% of the groups at risk. In these categories we must campaign to vaccinate them all, we cannot afford to leave out even one . We have to convince them. We have to go back to talking to these people. ” “What I think is a serious lack of the Ministry of Health – says Bassetti – is that a serious information campaign has never been carried out. We have come this far that people have been vaccinated because they have seen what happened in hospitals or for what he read in the newspapers and that’s it. But we have never seen – he maintains – an information campaign carried out by the ministry which, with commercials every evening without interruption, explained the importance of vaccination. So it had to be done, as in the others Countries. We need to talk and explain to these people. If we talk and explain, many are convinced. In the end – he concludes – a hard core “of unvaccinated” may remain but no more than 5% “.