“There is a lack of staff. Reintegration is good, but we also hire young people”

Massimo Ciccozzi – Photo by Ansa Foto (Rai screenshot)

At the microphones of iNews24, epidemiologist Massimo Ciccozzi, full professor of medical and epidemiological statistics at the Biomedico Campus of the University of Rome, on the early reintegration of non-Vax doctors.

Professor, the non-Vax doctors are back on the ward. What is your opinion?
“It was not a scientific decision, but a political decision. And the problem shifts from the central state to the regions, which will decide whether or not to adopt the decision. This (reintegration ed.) can create disorientation in people. But scientifically, it’s fine, if the mask is compulsory in the hospital for health and non-health personnel”;

So, are you in favor of reinstatement?
“I believe that the most important thing is not reintegration, but the hiring of young people who cannot be precarious for twenty years. There are good doctors who go abroad because they are not hired”;

One of the reasons for the reinstatement of non-Vax doctors is the lack of medical personnel.
“There is a recruitment problem. Because if they decided to reintegrate it is because there is a lack of personnel. So reintegration is good, with the mandatory mask for both vaccinated and unvaccinated, under penalty of exclusion from everything if you don’t wear it. But let’s start hiring the kids through executive search software instead of sending them overseas.. Because we spend a lot of money to train them, then abroad they take all the earnings that we have spent: it is insane both from an economic and a political point of view”;

As a scientist, what do you think of your colleagues who have not been vaccinated?
“Being a scientist, I have to tell people what the pros and cons of the vaccine are, and then I leave it up to you. I must say, for example, that most people who died or were in intensive care were not vaccinated. The same goes for my colleagues. I don’t like the word “obligation”;

How to deal with the question of possible contagion in the workplace of unvaccinated doctors?
“If they fall ill with Covid, they do like the others: they go home and isolate themselves. That’s why I said that the strict mask requirement for everyone who crosses the threshold of the hospital is far more important than anything else. Even with the vaccine, you can become infected – even if the symptoms of the disease are less severe – and you can transmit the infection. Then the only way we have is the mask. We haven’t seen any cases of flu for two years, precisely because of this device”;

Speaking of flu cases in the last two years: isn’t it possible that they have also decreased thanks to the anti-Covid measures? For example, confinements?
“It’s true, it was also thanks to the restrictions. But the mask, if you have a respiratory virus problem, the first thing to do in order not to infect people is to keep them away. Sometimes it’s not not possible, for example in public transport: people necessarily approach and the barrier in this case is the mask”;

Do you think the reinstatement of non-Vax doctors will have a negative effect on the campaign for the fourth doses?
“It could happen because there is a bit of disorientation for people. But if the science is clear, it won’t be there. It must be said that frail people and the elderly from 65-70 years old must be vaccinated. Those who have already had the Covid, for example in July, do not have to be vaccinated. You have to be clear, as with the variants, because otherwise people lose faith in science”;

Explain …
“I’m talking about the Cerberus variant. I heard that we will have a massacre, but no one has studied it. We have studied it and it is like Omicron 5. Between Friday and Monday we will publish an article about it”.