The virus has lost strength. Word of Bassetti
Return of the virus, vaccine, masks: what the infectious specialist Matteo Bassetti thinks
Long interview for Il Ponte magazine. founded by Piero Calamandrei, issued by the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti to prof. Massimo Jasonni.
Is it scientifically correct to say that the virus has lost viral load today?
The virus has lost strength. The reason he lost it can be found in multiple explanations. The most probable one is obtained from the work of various laboratories (for example that of Massimo Clementi, who in Italy is one of the avant-garde laboratories and which is the laboratory of the San Raffaele Hospital ) which tell us that comparing the swabs (those at respiratory or naso-feringei) of March-April with those of May, June and July, the viral load is decidedly lower. So this is a fact and we take it for granted. If we add it to the fact that, despite the fact that there are full-blown cases of infection every day, that is people infected, the number of subjects hospitalized in intensive care is now 40-45 throughout Italy, when we had 4,200 at the peak, and we had over 35 / 40,000 simultaneously infected people admitted to hospital or home, it seems clear to me that the virus, from the point of view of its clinical manifestation, has changed. Just look at the data from the Higher Institute of Health, which tell us that today we have, among asymptomatic, not very symptomatic or so-called mild cases, over 90%, which did not happen in the period of March-April, where we had yes 25-30 % asymptomatic, but the vast majority were people who had symptoms. So the virus has certainly lost strength.
Is there a return to maximum aggressiveness of the covid in the autumn or next winter?
No. I do not think we will get to have those numbers and situations we had in March again, because it would mean that we have not learned the lesson that covid should have taught us, that is: organization of intensive care, organization of pulmonology departments and infectious diseases, organization of first aid, organization of tampons, organization of radiology, organization of the territory, organization of RSA. All things that, it seems to me, we have done and done well. So the first reason is that the system is much better organized than it was in March. The second is that this virus, as we are seeing, has not disappeared, so much so that someone is talking about the second wave. Certainly the virus continues to circulate, but in a different way than what happened in March or April, which means that we will probably arrive at the autumn / winter season with a circulation of viruses, but in a different way. We will have cases, we cannot rule it out. We will then have to be good enough to ensure that people are not terrified. The message that has reached people up until now – and I talk to people every day – was: "If I take the covid, I'm fried", that is, "I'm dead". Now we have to tell people not that if you take the covid it's fried, but what to do if you take the covid. She has to stay at home, she has to call her doctor, she has to go to the emergency room only when there are certain signs. And this is how we will avoid having a second wave.
If, on the other hand, we continue to terrorize people, as we are doing, by telling them every day that we have hundreds of new people infected, that we are in an emergency, that the epidemic is not controlled, we will arrive in the autumn when a disaster will happen. Because at the first real cough or sneeze, which will arrive in the population – whether it is young, whether it is the boys, whether it is the grandparents – they will all go to the emergency room. And this could become a real problem.
So why am I trying to tone it down? Not because I have something in my pocket to say I'm optimistic. But because by instilling a bit of optimism, saying that this here is an infection from which in 99% of cases one is cured, that yes someone dies, but not all those who died before, which is a manageable disease, I try to educate a little people. So, in my opinion, those who talk about the second wave are talking about psychological terrorism.
Someone has thought of comparing the covid to the Spanish: but do we realize? 1918 versus 2020. How is it possible to compare two diseases that occurred in two such different moments? In 1918 there were no vaccines, there were no antibiotics, there were no drugs, there were no hospitals, there were no resuscitations.
How long does it take, in your opinion, for a vaccine to be obtained?
The data available today on the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford are very encouraging. There are already data on macaques, there are data from the let's say pre-clinical phase and they are very encouraging. Indeed, the experimentation started on July 27th and therefore we should have the first results on men probably as early as next autumn. So, if the research is running, it could be that this vaccine, or someone else, could even arrive by the end of the year or by the spring of 2021. Let's consider that there are more than 100 different vaccine programs around the world, practically every major country has at least one. Australia has it, Israel has it, Russia has it, we also have it partly in Italy, the United States have it, the British have it. In other words, we all have a little bit of a vaccination program. There is really a lot of ferment, and when there is scientific, cultural and research ferment it is always good, because it means that more than one will arrive at the final development. So, it's welcome that there are so many jobs.
How do you judge masks, distance between people, the fateful two meters, hand washing? Are they important, decisive?
In my opinion these principals are very important if used with common sense and reasoning. We must not get to the dictatorship of the mask or of distancing, because otherwise there is a risk of making the people decline medical practices. And this is a risk that we cannot take. We cannot say that from tomorrow we will make it compulsory to have a garrison because an administrator has decided it. In my opinion it is very wrong. The mandatory nature of a medical aid must always come from recommendations given by the world of medicine. When I see the controversy that there is today about the masks, I think there is something wrong with the organization of our country. Continuing to use the mask someone experiences it as a slavery and this is because the use of the mask, in my opinion, should take place by free choice, as an important safeguard to protect my health and that of the people I have next to. I don't have to do it because I have a legal obligation.
We must try, for infectious diseases, to educate the people, not to oppress them with new laws. "If you don't wear a mask, a fine of 1,000 euros; You can not enter; the identity card…". These are very wrong measures, which evidently lead to the social contrasts we see. So we have to tell people: face masks, physical distancing, hand washing, stay home if you have a cough, cold or fever, don't use antibiotics if you don't have a bacterial infection. Things that are the basis for infectious diseases, but unfortunately in our country, have not been adequately declined. We are the first country in Europe for resistant germs and in the number of deaths from resistant bacteria, yet nobody talks about it. Because? Why Italians get mixed up with antibiotics. This demonstrates their rudeness towards infectious diseases, which evidently affects the masks, the washing of hands, all other things.
We must try to take what the covid has taught us.
Taken from the Facebook profile of the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/il-covid-non-tornera-con-la-vecchia-forza-parola-di-bassetti/ on Sun, 23 Aug 2020 04:07:34 +0000.