Will a new variant of Covid resistant to all vaccines arrive?

Italy’s most popular scientist, who has beaten his predictions against the most optimistic tide, insisted on Saturday that “we are one step away from a new variant of the coronavirus. vaccine resistant”.

Professor Andrea Crisanti, director of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Padua, launched the most serious alarm While the Indian Delta variant is growing rapidly in Italy, the rest of Europe and the world are already present in 119 countries.

“With a rapidly evolving virus like Delta, we don’t have the ability to update vaccines and track variants. It takes a few months to reformulate the vaccine and another six months to distribute it. In the meantime, the virus will have galloped, ”Crisanti said via various media.

“To monitor the epidemic, it is not enough to look at the data on hospitalizations and deaths: it is necessary to trace the traces of the movements of the virus to anticipate its extraordinary capacity for mutations and to limit transmission”, he added. .

The danger of a catastrophe of this magnitude occurring has been partly accepted by the World Health Organization itself.

Dozens of variations are hiding

To stay alive, the coronavirus which was born in China at the end of 2019 and spread rapidly around the world, realizes mutations that allow him to continue attacking his victims.

The successful deployment of vaccines, their worst enemy, stimulates internal changes in viral substances. In Italy alone, 81 variants have been identified in recent months, whose 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 recorded 880 daily cases at the end of June, there have been five thousand infections every 24 hours in recent days and in the middle of summer, when the spread of the virus was thought to be decreasing.

It is believed that in August the 10,000 daily cases will pass quickly, which could reach 30,000 by the end of next month.

“Run in Europe, run in the world,” one newspaper headline noted.

The Delta variant, which in some Italian regions has become 60% dominant, is no more lethal than the previous Alpha, also called English.

Hospital admissions and intensive therapy remain at a very low level, showing the formidable barrier that vaccinations represent, which according to experts is resistant to the action of the virus, especially to prevent the most serious cases and deaths.

Accelerated vaccination

More than half of Italians over the age of 12, 29.4 million people, have been vaccinated and 63.5 million doses have been given, which also creates about 30% protection with just one of the two doses. .

The vaccination rate in hundreds of centers across the country is over half a million daily vaccinations, underlined the General Francesco Figliuolo, who is leading the campaign.

With the spread of the Delta variant and the over 60s, the most fragile population, with priority given to vaccinations, infections mainly affect unvaccinated young people.

The priorities have shifted towards the age groups of young people. First Pfizer and now Modern (considered the best vaccine), were allowed to send doses to inject to the age group between 12 and 17 years old.

Focus on adolescentsIn addition to this, you will need to know more about it.

General Figliuolo stressed that immediate efforts are focused on the eight and a half million high school students.

The school year will begin on September 7 and the goal, according to the military, is for 63% of students to have received at least the first dose.

A serious problem is that more than 220,000 teachers, professors and staff in the education community continue unvaccinated.

If the volume of opponents to the life-saving injection is maintained It is under consideration to declare compulsory that the staff of schools and colleges be vaccinated to give students the greatest security. Otherwise, they could even lose their jobs.

Refusal of compulsory vaccination

The issue of compulsory vaccinations against the pandemic creates friction and protest movements, because political rights fuel rebellions.

A prime example is the far-right leader Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, who has repeatedly accused the center-left sector of the government of which Salvini is part of practicing “terrorism” and of maintaining excessive measures to fight against the pandemic.

The young leader of the right-wing Brotherhood of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni, the only opposition political force and in continuous struggle with Salvini for the leadership of the Italian destra, also pointed the guns for what she sees as attacks individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced in the middle of the week the creation of the Health Passport, which contains the vaccines that each citizen has received.

Over 40 million people have received “Green Certification” electronically.

From August 6, it will be compulsory to present the Health Passport which indicates the vaccinations to eat in the bars and restaurants of the interior sectors.

Also to go to the cinema, theater, stadiums, gymnasiums, cultural and musical centers. In September, rules will be published for long-distance trains, ships and planes.

Some of the rights, majority in Italy, are in favor of the Health Passport and do not share the attacks by Salvini and Meloni on the virus contrast measures that go through Roberto Speranza, the Minister of Public Health, who belongs to a small party from the left.

Salvini and Meloni had never been vaccinated and maintain ambiguous positions to capture the consensus of the “no vax” movement which organizes new protests against the Health Passport.

Prime Minister Draghi went on the counter-offensive after announcing the “Green Certification”. He said recommending Italians not to get vaccinated is “a message of death”.

His words fell like a bomb. Salvini unexpectedly announced on Friday that he had been vaccinated. Public opinion regarded him as a defeat.

Draghi’s figure received a new boost in popularity, and their close relationship with President Sarkozy Sergio Mattarella made them a hugely popular political duo.

In two days, the reserves to be vaccinated have climbed to 200% in some regions.

The government has consolidated its stability. A right-wing newspaper sums up the situation: “Salvini runs to be vaccinated, Meloni goes to war.

The polls indicated that the young leader of the Brothers of Italy has moved Salvini from the first place of the consensus towards the political leaders. In contrast, the popularity of Prime Minister Draghi and President Mattarella has exceeded 72%.

Rome, correspondent

CB