ROME (AP) – Tuscan octogenarians watched in disbelief and outrage as lawyers, magistrates, teachers and other younger professionals were vaccinated against COVID-19 in front of them, despite government commitments to give priority to older Italian citizens . Even some of their adult children jumped in front of them.
According to an estimate, the failure to strike more than 80 years and those in fragile health cost thousands of lives in a country with the oldest population in Europe and the second largest loss of life in the pandemic.
While the elders were released, a dozen prominent elderly citizens of Tuscany issued a letter calling on the authorities, including the region’s governor, for what they said was a violation of their health rights enshrined in the Italian Constitution.
“We asked ourselves, ‘What is the reason for this disparity? “, Said the signatory Enzo Cheli, a retired judge at the constitutional court, who has a month of shyness of 87 years. campaign.
“The call was born from this idea that mistakes were made, abuses,” Cheli said in a telephone interview from his house near Siena. He noted that investigations are ongoing in Tuscany and other regions where professionals have been given priority status.
Those over 80 in Tuscany have the lowest vaccination rate in the country.
Another signatory was the 85-year-old editorial cartoonist Emilio Giannelli, who was not vaccinated, while his son, a lawyer, did.
A Giannelli cartoon appeared on the front page of the Corriere della Sera depicting a young man in a business jacket kicking an old man supported by a cane from a vaccine line.
In a country where many citizens have learned not to rely on often weak national governments, oversized influence is exercised by lobby groups, sometimes ridiculed as “castes.”
Prime Minister Mario Draghi denounced such “contractual influence”, saying last month that “the baseline is the need to vaccinate the most vulnerable people and those over 80”. His government insists that vaccinations are carried out in descending order of age, with the only exceptions being school and university staff, security forces, prison staff and detainees, and those in communal residences such as monasteries.
According to a calculation by the ISPI think tank, the opening of vaccination lists for younger Italians cost 6,500 lives from mid-January to March, when nearly 28,000 died.
ISPI researcher Matteo Villa said that any decision to vaccinate professionals who do not face health care and face the risk of infection should have been limited to those over 50 years of age.
“If we offer 100 vaccines to people over 90, we save 13 lives,” Villa said in a telephone interview, citing mortality rates. “But 100,000 vaccines are needed for young people between the ages of 20 and 29 to save a single life.”
The current average age of the pandemic that died in Italy is 81 years.
During the pandemic, the oldest Italians accounted for the majority of deaths, and not just in Tuscany. Even before Draghi sounded the alarm about lobbying groups, journalists in the small Molise region had been prepared to receive early vaccinations. In Lombardy, veterinarians have been given priority. In Campania, the region, including Naples, the sales agents of drug companies have obtained priority status.
Regional leaders blame the delays in vaccine delivery, claiming that the previous government’s vaccine launch has opened the door for lobby groups.
Some regions, such as Lazio, which includes Rome, have resisted their pressure. By the end of March, almost 64% of those aged 80 and over in Lazio had received at least one COVID-19 photo, compared to 40% in Tuscany.
Speaking about the most fragile societies, Lazio Governor Nicola Zingaretti told Corriere della Sera: “It is true that everyone risks receiving COVID, but the difference is that they are among those who, if caught, risk dying more. than others ”.
Of Italy’s 4.4 million people aged 80 and over, less than 29 percent were vaccinated, and another 27 percent received only the first dose by the end of March, said the GIMBE Foundation, which monitors healthcare in Italy.
This compares with 95% of the age group in Malta who received at least one dose and 85% in Finland, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Italy.
In the UK, where the vaccine was launched about a month before the EU, most people over the age of 50 have received at least one dose.
GIMBE official Renata Gili linked much of Italy’s unequal performance to its varied organizational capabilities, as well as “excessive autonomy in the regions in choosing priority vaccination categories”.
Some lobby groups do not back down. The National Association of Magistrates, which represents the majority of the more than 9,600 magistrates in Italy, has threatened to slow down the judicial system at a snail’s pace if it is not given priority. On Thursday, the tourism lobby called for priority vaccines for its workers, describing them as essential to the country’s recovery.
On Friday, a senior Health Ministry official, Giovanni Rezza, tried to stop any jockeying for priority.
“There was a battle between categories” to get the vaccine’s priority, Rezza told a news conference when asked if supermarket officials could get special status. “I said, ‘Let’s finish the teachers, the security forces, but let’s not have categories anymore.’ We will simply use age criteria. ”
The army general who was hit by Draghi last month to stir up the Italian COVID-19 vaccination campaign acknowledges his widespread problems.
“Is everything going well?” No, “General Francesco Figliuolo told reporters in Milan on Wednesday.
It is not known how many people in Italy have received priority vaccines. The office of the Tuscany health commission said that before Draghi removed the special interest groups, 10,319 lawyers, magistrates, court clerks and staff had received a dose in the region.
Allowing lawyers and others to have quick access to vaccines is “a problem and everyone is upset,” said Nathan Levi, an 83-year-old antiquarian from Florence next month who is still waiting. “It simply came to our notice then. People who put pressure ”go forward.
Of the 10.6 million doses administered so far in Italy, about 1.6 million were for people classified as “others”, prompting some politicians to ask who they are. When questioned, Figliuolo’s office admitted that it had no idea and said it was pressuring the regions for specific details.
The 70-year-old Italians, who are largely out of the workforce, are still waiting for their shots. By March 31, only 8% had received a first dose and less than 2% had received both.
Then there are people in fragile health who have a priority category on the government’s launch chart.
“The situation for the ‘fragile’ is one of great uncertainty,” said Francesca Lorenzi, a 48-year-old lawyer from Milan with breast cancer. She noted that if cancer patients finished therapy more than six months ago, they are no longer considered “fragile.”
“In the meantime, they gave doses of Pfizer to 60-year-olds, who were very healthy because they had university contracts. I don’t understand why a university professor or a lawyer should get vaccinated before the others “, she said.
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Colleen Barry reported from Milan. Pan Pylas of London contributed to this report.
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