Italy’s most popular scientist, who has hit his predictions going against the current of the most optimistic, insisted this Saturday that “we are one step away from a new variant of coronavirus vaccine resistant”.
Professor Andrea Crisanti, director of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Padua, launched the most serious alarm While Indian Delta variant expands rapidly in Italy, the rest of Europe and worldwide it is already present in 119 countries.
“With a rapidly changing virus like the Delta, we don’t have the ability to update vaccines and keep up with variants. It takes a couple of months to reformulate the vaccine and another six months to distribute it. Meanwhile, the virus will have galloped, ”said Crisanti by various media.
“To monitor the epidemic, it is not enough to look at the data on hospital admissions and deaths: the traces of the movements of the virus must be traced to anticipate its extraordinary capacity for mutations and limit transmission,” he added.
The danger of a disaster of such magnitude has been partly accepted by the same World Health Organization.
Tourists and locals cool off in the fountain in the Spanish Steps, in Rome. In midsummer, coronavirus cases grow. Photo: EFE
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Dozens of variants lurking
To stay alive, the coronavirus that was born in China at the end of 2019 and spread rapidly around the world, realizes mutations that allow it to continue attacking its victims.
The successful deployment of vaccines, their worst enemy, stimulates the internal changes of viral substances. In Italy alone, 81 variants have been identified in recent months, of which the Delta is the one with the highest viral load with a contagion power of 60% more than the English variant, the previous dominant one.
In Italy, which registered 880 daily cases at the end of June, in recent days there have been five thousand infections every 24 hours and in midsummer, when it was thought that the spread of the virus was declining.
It is believed that in August the 10,000 daily cases will quickly pass, which could reach 30,000 by the end of next month.
“Run in Europe, run in the world,” noted a newspaper headline.
The Delta variant, which in some Italian regions has become 60% dominant, is no more lethal than the previous Alpha, also called English.
In Italy they are now seeking to vaccinate adolescents against Covid-19. Photo: EFE
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Hospital admissions and intensive therapies remain at a very low level, which shows the formidable barrier represented by vaccinations, that according to the experts resist well the action of the virus, in particular to avoid the most serious cases and the deaths.
Accelerated vaccination
More than half of Italians over the age of 12, 29.4 million people, have been immunized and 63.5 million doses have been given which also create about 30% protection with just one of the two doses.
The rate of vaccinations in hundreds of centers distributed throughout the country is more than half a million daily inoculations, pointed out the General Francesco Figliuolo, who leads the campaign.
With the spread of the Delta variant and those over 60 years of age, the most fragile population, with priority on vaccinations, infections mainly affect unvaccinated young people.