Italy’s first covid-19 patient was registered on 21 February 2020 in a small town near Milan. Shortly afterwards, the country was one of the hardest hit in Europe. The Italian health service was on the verge of collapse and seriously ill corona patients flooded into hospitals.
As the summer came, the pressure of infection decreased and the death rate flattened out. Then came the autumn and again the Italians experienced a violent wave of infection again. A contagion that has the benefit of losing momentum.
It has already been a few months since Italy started setting vaccine doses, but the corona death rates in the country have not been any lower for that reason.
Still many corona deaths
On Wednesday, Italy registered 627 new corona deaths in one day. On Thursday, the number was 487 new deaths in the last 24 hours.
In the last week as a whole, more than 3,000 Italians have lost their lives to coronavirus.
If you compare these figures with neighboring France – which is also in a new wave of infections – the weekly death toll is 1,100 cases lower. this despite the fact that Italy has 7 million fewer inhabitants than France.
Concern among experts
The fact that the roll-out of vaccine doses to the population has not seemed to affect the death toll has made many Italian experts uneasy.
And with good reason. For numbers The Washington Post has gained access to, shows that only 2.2 percent of Italians between the ages of 70 and 79 have been vaccinated so far. In all other adult age groups, a higher proportion are vaccinated.
Now, several are questioning Italy’s decentralized health care system and the varying vaccine priorities of the various regions.
To begin with, the authorities recommended that elderly and medical personnel should be given priority in the vaccine queues.