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Italy calls in retired doctors to help fight coronavirus outbreak

Italy on Saturday began recruiting retired doctors as part of urgent efforts to bolster the healthcare system with 20,000 additional staff to fight the escalating viral epidemic.

Published: 7 March 2020 11:55 CET
Italy calls in retired doctors to help fight coronavirus outbreak
Medical staff assist a patient arriving at a hospital in Cremona, northern Italy. Photo: AFP

The measure was one of several adopted by the government during an all-night cabinet meeting that came after the country reported a record 49 deaths on Friday.

Friday's death toll from the novel coronavirus was the highest of the two-week crisis and took Italy's fatalities total to 197 – the biggest outside China itself.

The outbreak in Italy has prompted authorities to close all schools until mid-March, and announce a 7.5 billion euro rescue plan to tackle the outbreak – with much of that money destined for the emergency services, the government said.

An unusuallyquiet street in central Rome on Friday. Photo: AFP

Meanwhile many areas usually filled with tourists are now quiet after many reportedly cancelled travel plans to the country amid virus fears.

The sharp drop in visitor numbers to Italy is wreaking havoc with the country's usually booming tourism industry ,and contributing to fears that the anaemic economy is about to tip back into recession.

But the government's most immediate concern is that COVID-19 infections that had been largely contained to pockets of the richer north will start spreading into the poorer and less medically equipped south.

The World Health Organization concluded a mission to Italy on Friday by recommending the government keep “a strong focus on containment measures”.

The government said its medical recruitment drive should help double the staff of hospitals' respiratory and infectious disease departments.

It should also increase the number of intensive care beds from 5,000 to 7,500 in the coming days.
The number of Italians receiving intensive care treatment for the COVID-19 disease reached 462 on Friday.

The total number of coronavirus infections grew to 4,636 on Friday.

The Vatican is also unrolling unprecedented health precautions designed to keep the tiny city state's 450 mostly elderly residents safe, after the first COVID-19 infection was recorded at one of its clinics on Thursday.

 

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

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Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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