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07 June 2021 "The possibility of definitively getting out of this situation depends fundamentally on 2 factors: the duration of the protection induced by the anti-Covid vaccination. The virologist Andrea Crisanti, director of the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Padua, told "Agorà" on Rai3.



"One thing is if it lasts 12-18 months and another is if it lasts 8 months, and then clearly the problem of variants, because there are some that lower vaccination protection". But on the sequencing front, in Italy "we are still far behind".



"We sequence a few hundred samples a week", points out the expert, while "I believe England is sequencing almost every single virus at this point. There is still a lot to be done on this, as well as on tracing. This is the time to increase the swabs, not to decrease them - warns the virologist - When the virus is more vulnerable, the tracing action is more effective ". 



Within a month off the mask

"When the percentage of vaccinated" against Covid-19 "increases, continuing at this" vaccination rate, "I imagine that within a month outdoors we will be able to remove the mask safely. In England , but even in the United States, practically nobody uses it outdoors anymore ", emphasizes Crisanti.



Without vaccine, Italy is as vulnerable as 2 years ago

"It is incontrovertible that deaths" from Covid-19 "are decreasing, and that ICU admissions are decreasing, but it's all about the vaccination. Everything we could do in addition to vaccination we didn't. If there were no vaccination, Italy would be as vulnerable as 2 years ago ". The virologist once again highlights the gaps in the fight against the pandemic coronavirus in our country: little tracking to monitor the progress of infections, little sequencing to intercept the variants of Sars-CoV-2.



In Italy, little tracking and few buffers

"I would like to see this increasingly white Italy - says the expert - with an adequate number of swabs and adequate surveillance measures. If Italy had 2 thousand cases of" Covid a day "and 700 thousand swabs", that is as many as there are does the United Kingdom, to the numbers of the daily bulletins "I would believe it. England has 6 thousand cases and 2-3 deaths a day - he observes - How do we get the cases we count", yesterday just over 2 thousand, "and 20 times more dead? Does not add up. The explanation - repeats Crisanti - is that in my opinion we have not done enough swabs and tracking in recent months. In fact, there is still an important submerged ". 



In October we will know if a third dose is needed

"We will probably know between October and November" if a third dose of the anti-Covid vaccine will be needed. "The good thing is that it seems you can combine" different shield products, "mix for example AstraZeneca with Pfizer, and they seem to give a very good immune response. This is good news."



Geolocalize whoever enters public places

Freezing those who enter public places would help the war against Covid-19. Crisanti is convinced of this, proposing also for Italy the "right compromise" that "was found in England: every time a person enters a cinema, a stadium, a restaurant", in short "in a public place , scan a QR code and immediately you know it was there. " So "not a continuous geolocation, in every single moment", the virologist specified, but rather "a compromise" that "does not seem to me - he underlines - a great derogation from the right to privacy".



"When one pays with a credit card, or with an App or with any other tool, it is clear that at that moment he already delegates all his privacy rights", the scientist notes. "We are continuously tracked for commercial purposes - he adds - Privacy is the legislative fence through which large companies run their business. I would be of the idea to unhinge this thing, to abolish privacy, because it is the only way to break these monopolies ". 



Danger variants from vaccine-free countries

"In many parts of the world they do not have vaccines available and there is a high risk that variants can develop that can escape them," says the virologist. "Just look at what is happening in the United Kingdom - continued Crisanti - where the increase in cases is 40% weekly: let's not forget that there are 750,000 swabs, mostly molecular, per day and there is a of filtering and tracking at borders that we do not have ".