Vita gazette – The Covid storm, which has broken out in China, has begun to hit the countries. Italy has begun to enforce the swab obligation at airports to check passengers arriving from the Asian country.
Midwinter again. And again, the Covid emergency. Beijing’s decision to reopen its borders after three years and free everyone amid the wave of Covid that has engulfed the country has raised concerns that “a new global Covid catastrophe is coming”. America has imposed the obligation of a negative test for travellers arriving from China, where the lines of sick people are getting longer in front of the hospitals and the morgues – according to the information filtering through – are collapsing. The numbers circulating are alarming: according to the British research company Airfinity, to date, there are over a million new cases and at least 5,000 deaths a day. And the situation is likely to get even worse. The decision of the Lombardy Region to start with checks at Malpensa has uncovered the emergency: almost one in two passengers, among those who arrived at the Milanese airport from China on December 26 aboard two flights, tested positive for Covid.
Orientation was also followed yesterday by Fiumicino airport. Then came the government decision, which imposed mandatory tests and quarantine for those found positive. But obviously, it is not only Italy that is worried. The USA, India, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan have already decided on mandatory swabs.
In his ordinance, the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci also ordered the sequencing of the virus, a necessary measure to ensure surveillance and the identification of any variants. The new variants that are developing in China, in addition to the easing of restrictions, would be the reasons for the surge in Covid: in particular, the so-called Gryphon, i.e. the XBB, the number one suspect for the increase in cases and hospitalizations. Strengthening of tests and attention to the circulation of the virus are the levers on which they are asking for action. Even if the data from Lazio are worrying, which has recorded a boom in infections with an increase of 2250 cases in the last 24 hours: the ratio of positives to tampons has jumped to 17%, over 5 points more than yesterday, which was at 11.9%.
While the government was preparing, with the go-ahead for the decree on raves, to ease further the measures to combat the virus, the management of the epidemic is back on the table at Palazzo Chigi. The upsurge in China, moreover, has already led the centre-right executive, which had promised goodbye to the restrictions, to reintroduce mandatory tampons for travellers arriving from areas of the new infection. The first is in Europe, while others, such as France, say they are ready to coordinate with Brussels. Italy, too, announces Minister Orazio Schillaci has written to the EU Health Commissioner to ask for “coordinated” action, also because in addition to direct arrivals, there is the problem of who makes a stopover in the Schengen area. Matteo Salvini also let it be known that he is in contact with the Commissioner for Transport, Adina Valean, asking for checks in all EU countries. “We are worried. We want to be sure that all the necessary preventive measures are activated,” said former Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin in the Senate who, together with 5S Stefano Patuanelli and the group leader of the third pole, Raffaella Paita, asked for urgent information to the Senate.
Melons: tampons and masks remain useful
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is convinced that in Italy, “the situation on Covid is under control”. But “swabs and masks” remain useful, underlines the Prime Minister. However, the virus that comes from the Dragon scares Italy. The main airports prepare the mandatory test for tourists arriving from Beijing. Today the first test flight from China landed at the Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome. For people arriving at Fiumicino from the Dragon, a particular area has been set up for anti-Covid tests, a “space for swabs on departure and swabs on arrival and also quarantine – explained the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Galeazzo Bignami- We don’t want to make the mistakes of the past”.
Schillaci: “In China, the embankment of vaccination has not worked”
“In China, the (anti-Covid) vaccination embankment did not work”. This was stated by the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, in his report to the Senate on health checks at airports on passengers from China. “A perfect storm” has taken place in China, the minister said during the Senate briefing on the Covid situation following the emergency in China. “A paradoxical unicum, the images of megalopolises have been an icon of the disease, impressive and unacceptable norms for a democracy. Only 4 million cases were reported at the end of November. Few vaccinations in China, a low level of protection of the vaccines used, and few doses to call. Omicron until recently had little circulation with low hybrid immunity. Then this autumn the perfect storm”.