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COVID-19 VACCINES

Italy’s Lazio region resumes Covid vaccine bookings after hack

Reservations for the Covid-19 vaccine were again being taken in Italy's Lazio region on Thursday, officials said, after a massive cyberattack shut down bookings for nearly a week.

Italy's Lazio region resumes Covid vaccine bookings after hack
Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The president of the Lazio region, which includes Rome, said reservations had restarted using a new website, while a temporary version of the original, regional site that was targeted would launch on Monday.

“Following the work of the past few days, we are now able to present a schedule of services we’re reactivating,” said region chief Nicola Zingaretti.

“The vaccination booking system is operational this afternoon.”

EXPLAINED: How can you book a Covid vaccination appointment in Italy?

Access to other digital services from the region would roll out again in days and weeks to come, he said.

The region’s official website suffered a massive ransomware attack on Saturday night, a form of malware that encrypts the victim’s files.

Although typically a ransom is demanded in exchange for the key to decrypt the data, no such ransom request had been made, Zingaretti said.

A terrorism investigation has been opened, but the authors of the attack are still unidentified. Zingaretti said the hack had come from abroad.

“One can’t have any certainty about where these attacks came from because the methods used through the internet make it very difficult to identify the true source,” the head of Italy’s parliamentary commission on security, Adolfo Urso, told Mediaset’s TG4 television programme on Wednesday.

Some 66 percent of the adult population in Lazio has been fully vaccinated, according to officials, and 62 percent in Italy overall, over the age of 12.

In June, Italy’s government set up a new agency specialised in cybersecurity in order to fight against an increasing number of attacks.

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COVID-19 RULES

Italy allows suspended anti-vax doctors to return to work

Italian heathcare staff suspended over their refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19 can now return to work, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni confirmed on Monday.

Italy allows suspended anti-vax doctors to return to work

Italy become the first country in Europe to make it obligatory for healthcare workers to be vaccinated, ruling in 2021 that they must have the jab or be transferred to other roles or suspended without pay.

That obligation had been set to expire in December, but was brought forward to Tuesday due to “a shortage of medical and health personnel”, Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said.

READ ALSO: Is Italy’s government planning to scrap all Covid measures?

Italy was the first European country to be hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, and has since registered nearly 180,000 deaths.

Schillaci first announced the plan to scrap the rule on Friday in a statement saying data showed the virus’ impact on hospitals  “is now limited”.

Those who refuse vaccination will be “reintegrated” into the workforce before the rule expires at the end of this year, as part of what the minister called a “gradual return to normality”.

Meloni said the move, which has been criticised by the centre-left as a win for anti-vax campaigners, would mean some 4,000 healthcare workers can return to work.

This includes some 1,579 doctors and dentists refusing vaccination, according to records at the end of October, representing 0.3 percent of all those registered with Italy’s National Federation of the Orders of Physicians, Surgeons and Dentists (Fnomceo) 

Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party railed against the way Mario Draghi’s government handled the pandemic, when it was the main opposition party, and she promised to use her first cabinet meetings to mark a clear break in policies with her predecessor.

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