Italy: Pandemic ‘to end by spring’ as Covid vaccinations hit new record

Rome: As Italy has marked a new record for vaccine administrations in one day, an Italian virologist has predicted an exit date from the pandemic as early as spring.

Italy hit a new record for administering anti-Covid vaccines on Tuesday of over 686,000 – 77,500 of those were first doses, including 48,000 children and 22,500 first doses for the over 50s. Almost 550,000 third doses were administered.

That’s according to an announcement by the Italian government, released by Italy’s Covid-19 emergency commissioner Francesco Figliuolo.

Some 86.5 percent of the eligible population over 12 years have now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the latest official figures show.

The progress of the vaccination campaign has accelerated to a point where one health expert has predicted an impending end date to the pandemic in Italy.

“Already in spring, between April and May 2022, we will reasonably be out of the pandemic,” Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic in Genoa, told Rai Radio1 on Wednesday.

This is despite his predictions of the trend of infections continuing to rise, fuelled by the Omicron variant.

“I believe that in Italy today there are 10-15 percent (of people) positive, so about ten million people, and by spring more than one Italian in two will be infected,” he added.

Despite his forecast, he went on to talk about mask wearing soon becoming obsolete, which is currently mandatory outdoors across the whole of Italy until at least January 31st.

“I hope we will be able to remove masks, since I believe we will have 95 percent of vaccinated people,” he stated.

He also hit out at Italy’s latest quarantine rules, as more than 2 million people are currently in isolation. The Italian government announced a revision of the coronavirus quarantine rules under a new decree law last month.

Quarantine will no longer be required for close contacts if they have had a booster dose, or were fully vaccinated or recovered within the last four months (120 days).

But seemingly referring to those who have had three doses more than four months ago, Bassetti criticised the rule as “stupid”.

“If I had had to do (quarantine) for every contact I had, I would have had to stay at home since last February,” he added.

His prediction for Italy coming out of the pandemic by spring comes as the country’s infection rates continue to soar.

Italy hit another record on Tuesday with 220,532 new Covid infections, according to data from the ministry of health, pushing four regions to a more restricted ‘orange’ zone by Monday.

There are currently more than 2 million positive cases in Italy; almost 140,000 people have died in Italy since the start of the pandemic.