“The bulletin of the dead made in this way terrifies the citizens”

Matteo Bassetti at Porta a Porta – Photo by Ansa Foto

At the microphones of iNews24, Matteo Bassetti, director of the Clinic for Infectious Diseases at the Policlinico of Genoa.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced that her government will not apply restrictions on freedom to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It was widely expected. Brothers from Italy and also from the center-right, already campaigning had announced that the line was not to apply restrictions. Overall, I agree, it is the line that I have been suggesting lately. Obligations and restrictions could make sense in 2020. Already in 2021 I believe they were exaggerated: we are the European country that has closed schools for the longest time, we we had the longest confinements in the world, we only removed the obligation of the mask. I believe that in Italy there has been an exaggerated conservatism. So this opening of the Prime Minister is acceptable. After that, I hope that ‘we will move from words to deeds’;

What facts are you waiting for?
“For example, removing the home isolation requirement for those who test positive for the swab but asymptomatic, reformulating the rules that require taking a swab to enter certain offices or television studios, easing the rules for entering hospitals and health facilities to visit relatives. Or lighten the daily bulletin with deaths. I believe that at this stage the virus can be managed without obligations or restrictions”;

Speaking of the daily bulletin: what do you mean by flash?
“The death figures are fictitious. We have numbers that are of no use to anyone. Among the deaths, are grouped patients who died from Covid and for Covid. In the first case, they would have died of other problems all the same. I’ve been saying this for a year and a half. Until we make an effort to see who died of bilateral interstitial pneumonia, we will never understand how many deaths there have been from Covid. I believe that on this, we need a medical inquiry commission which will verify at least in 2022 how many of these deaths were caused by the direct effects of the virus on the lungs. The death bulletin is false because it gives erroneous information. Many patients are in intensive care for another reason and have found a positive sample”;

So you’re saying daily bulletins shouldn’t be done or should they be done differently?
“Enough of the death bulletin done like that, which makes no sense, except to terrorize the citizens. We give boosted numbers to the buffer, we have to give real numbers. I tell you that the impact of the Covid in Italy today is nil. Moreover, this way of counting in a stupid way is very bad for the vaccination campaign, because it makes people believe that the vaccine is not necessary. I hope that the new government will heavily review the management of Covid and in this I agree with the Prime Minister”;

Professor, why did only 7% of Italians take the fourth dose?
“Because there was, once again, a communication problem. It was wrong to say “fourth dose”. We should have called it a “booster dose” to have better effects. Secondly, in the first months of the year we announced the fourth dose for the over 80s, then in July we announced that the updated vaccine would arrive in September: there was confusion and citizens decided not to get vaccinated. Also, extending vaccination to everyone was very wrong”;

Why?
“It had to be said that it was only necessary to take care of the most fragile and those over 65, without extending the audience to those over 12. It distracts energy and resources from understanding why the octogenarians didn’t do it. to get vaccinated. Today, a single unvaccinated octogenarian is worth a thousand other unvaccinated twelve-year-olds. For the impact on the health system, on health and on serious forms, it would have been necessary to work only on the over 65s and the fragile, leaving all the others aside”;

He spoke of an “exaggerated conservatism” in Italy in the management of the pandemic…
“But I also say that today the situation is profoundly different from a few years ago. It’s hard to find a doctor who says the 2021 decisions shouldn’t have been made. I agree with the 2021 measurements, but 2022 is another matter. But you shouldn’t make a bundle of all the grass: in my opinion the schools have been closed for a long time and the confinements could have been avoided or done in another way. But vaccinations are another matter”;

Explain …
“I would recommend getting vaccinated again and I’m not even refusing the green pass as it served to convince people to get vaccinated. I have always had a critical position towards confinements, masks, school closures, dad, CTS management, but I do not deny my position on vaccines. And I hope that there are no colleagues who do it, because it would be odious”.