ROME (AP) – Tuscany octogenarians watched in disbelief and indignation as lawyers, magistrates, professors and other younger professionals were vaccinated before COVID-19, despite government promises to prioritize Italy’s senior citizens. Even some of their adult children overtook them.
According to one estimate, the failure to give shots to those over 80 and those in poor health has 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 elderly have been set aside, a dozen prominent citizens in Tuscany have published a letter calling on the authorities, including the governor of the region, for what they believe is a violation of their health rights enshrined in the Italian Constitution. .
“We asked ourselves, ‘What is the reason for this difference? ‘, Said the signatory Enzo Cheli, a retired judge of the constitutional court, who is a month shy of 87. By the end of March, he had not yet been vaccinated, three months after the vaccination of Italy. campaign.
“The appeal was born out of the idea that mistakes are being made, abused,” Cheli said in a telephone interview of his country near Siena. He noted that investigations are under way in Tuscany and other regions where professionals are receiving preferential status.
Those over 80 in Tuscany have the lowest vaccination rate nationally.
Another signer was 85-year-old editorial cartoonist Emilio Giannelli, who has not yet been vaccinated, while his son, a lawyer.
A Giannelli cartoon appears on the cover of Corriere della Sera depicting a young man in a pocket jacket kicking an old man leaning on a cane out of a vaccine line.
In a country where many citizens have learned not to count on often weak national governments, excessive influence is exercised by lobby groups, sometimes pronounced as ‘caste’.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi dismissed such ‘contractual influence’, saying last month that the ‘basic line is the need to vaccinate the most vulnerable people and those over 80’. His government insists that vaccinations by age proceed in descending order, with the only exceptions being school and university workers, security forces, prison staff and prisoners, and those in communal residences such as monasteries.
According to a calculation by the ISPI think tank, the opening of vaccination rolls for younger Italians cost 6,500 lives from mid-January to March, a period in which nearly 28,000 died.
ISPI researcher Matteo Villa said any decision to vaccinate non-health workers who face infection risks should be up to those 50 years and older.
“If we give 100 vaccines to people over 90, we save 13 lives,” Villa said in a telephone interview, referring to death rates. “But 20- to 29-year-olds need 100,000 vaccines to save just one life.”
The current average age of pandemics killed in Italy is 81.
During the pandemic, the oldest Italians made up the majority of deaths, and not just in Tuscany. Just before Draghi sounded the alarm about lobby groups, journalists in the small Molise region were ready to get early vaccinations. In Lombardy, veterinarians were preferred. In Campania, the region including Naples, drug company sellers have been given preferential status.
Regional leaders blame delays in delivering vaccines, claiming the previous government’s vaccination opened the door for lobby groups.
Some regions like Lazio, which includes Rome, have withstood their pressure. By the end of March, nearly 64% of 80-year-olds in Lazio had received at least one COVID-19 shot, compared to 40% in Tuscany.
Nicola Zingaretti, governor of Lazio, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: “It is true that everyone is at risk of becoming COVID, but the difference is that they are among those who, if they catch it, are at risk. to die more than others. ”
Of the 4.4 million inhabitants aged 80 and over in Italy, less than 29% were vaccinated, and another 27% only received the first dose at the end of March, says the GIMBE Foundation, which monitors health care in Italy.
This compares with 95% of the age group in Malta receiving at least one dose and 85% in Finland, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Italy.
In Britain, where the effects of vaccines began about a month before the EU, most of the 50s received at least one dose.
GIMBE official Renata Gili linked much of Italy’s unequal performance to various organizational capabilities, as well as an excess of autonomy in regions in choosing priority categories to vaccinate. ‘
Some lobby groups do not back down. The National Magistrates Association, which represents most of Italy’s more than 9,600 magistrates, has threatened to further delay the legal system with snails if they are not given preference. The tourism lobby on Thursday demanded priority vaccines for its workers, describing them as essential to the country’s recovery.
On Friday, a top health ministry official, Giovanni Rezza, tried to put more jockeys down for priority.
‘There was a struggle between categories ″ to get vaccine priority, Rezza said at a news conference when asked if supermarket clerks could get special status. “We said, ‘Let’s finish the teachers, the security forces, but let’s not have any more categories.’ ‘We will simply use age criteria. ”
The army general who was attacked by Draghi last month to shake up the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Italy 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 received preferential vaccinations. According to the Tuscany Health Commissioner’s office, before Draghi drew interest in special interest groups, 10,319 lawyers, magistrates, court clerks and staff received a dose in the region.
It’s a problem giving lawyers and others quick access to vaccines, and everyone is angry about it, ‘said Nathan Levi, an antiques dealer in Florence who turns 83 next month and is still waiting. “This is what Italy is all about. The people who put the pressure appear.
Of the 10.6 million doses administered so far in Italy, about 1.6 million went to people classified as ‘other’, which some politicians asked to know who they were. Figliuolo’s office admitted on inquiry that he had no idea and said he was urging the regions for specific details.
Italians in their 70s, who are largely outside the workforce, are still waiting for their shots. By 31 March, only 8% had received a first dose and less than 2% both.
Then there are people with fragile health, who have a priority category on the government’s rollout card.
“The situation for the ‘fragile’ is of great uncertainty,” said Francesca Lorenzi, a 48-year-old lawyer in Milan with breast cancer. She noted that if cancer patients graduated more than six months ago, they would no longer be considered “fragile”.
‘Meanwhile, they gave doses of Pfizer to 60-year-olds in good health because they have university contracts. “I do not understand why a university professor or a lawyer should be vaccinated in front of others,” she said.
___
Colleen Barry reports from Milan. Pan Pylas in London contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemie
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus- vaccination
https://apnews.com/hub/understanding-the-outbreak