How is the vaccination campaign going in Italy?
The article by Pierluigi Allibardi, hospital doctor
From table 1 (source Istituto Superiore di Sanità):
Percentage of deaths from Covid-19 in Italy, by region, and by period: March May 2020 (1st wave), October 2020-March 2021 (2nd wave), intermediate period between the 2 waves (June-September 2020). The northern regions are most affected (see the last column on the right): 59% of the total and, if Lazio is added, 65.1% is reached, i.e. about 2/3 of the total of the regions (see also fig. 1):
Figure 1
From table 2:
Mortality from Covid-19, i.e. the percentage of deaths on the population by region, is higher in some regions (see Table 2, last column on the right) and, more precisely, in the northern regions, followed by those of central Italy and in the south (see also Fig. 2, upper part): that is, people die more in the north.
Figure 2
Furthermore, this mortality is more represented among the over 70s, for each region (see Fig. 2, lower part: total deaths from Covid in a given region for the number of over 70 years in that same region): the decreasing gradient of north → south mortality.
It is estimated that, in order to allow an economic recovery at least in the 2nd half of 2021, EU countries should urgently implement a vaccination program aimed at people at risk (about 20-30% of the total) by the 1st half of 2021. Therefore optimal allocation of vaccines for those most susceptible to severe forms of the disease (risk factors associated with death from Covid-19: advanced age, presence of comorbidities and low blood level of vitamin D): cf. tab. 3, i.e. Covid died in Italy from the beginning of the pandemic to 1 March 2021:
All this to reduce the number of hospitalizations as soon as possible and therefore to lower the number of daily deaths and, consequently, to be able, as soon as possible, to favor the so-called commercial "reopening".
For the vaccines currently in use in Italy, the mortality recorded during the use of these 3 vaccines is (in the US and UK) of 20-30 cases per million doses. Considering the different lethality of the virus for the various age groups, it follows that the risk of dying from the vaccine rather than Covid-19 is greater for young people under the age of 25: the latter, therefore, at to this day, they should not be vaccinated.
From what has been said, to solve the problem, people with the highest probability of dying from Covid-19 should be promptly vaccinated. In Italy, 96% of deaths from Covid-19 are over 60 years old; therefore the vaccinated should be the over 60s, the "fragile people" (diabetics, obese, …) and, among the over 60s, those with comorbidities.
As of April 5, 2021, over 11 million vaccines have been administered in Italy, but only 47.38% have been inoculated to over 70s (source: Ministry of Health). From fig. 3: trend in the number of Covid-19 deaths per million inhabitants of the resident population in Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Figure 3
In an Italian reality with currently limited availability of vaccines, their correct allocation is essential to reduce as much as possible the number of deaths and hospitalizations.
Therefore: 1) rigorous vaccination campaign starting from the oldest, 2) greater distribution of vaccine doses to the 5 Italian regions with the highest mortality, 3) priority to a prognostic index "frailty index" able to attribute to each citizen ( 18-79 years) the risk of presenting clinically critical forms of Covid-19.
Source: Fondazionehume.it
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/come-procede-campagna-vaccinale-in-italia/ on Sun, 11 Apr 2021 16:00:04 +0000.