LECCE – All but one of the guests of the “Villa Santa Lucia” social welfare residence in Scorrano are positive for Sars Cov 2, where 29 cases are registered. Unfortunately three of these have evolved to death, while two elderly people are currently hospitalized with Covid symptoms: one is not vaccinated, the other with a cycle not yet completed.
That of Scorrano, where doctors and nurses from the social and health district of Maglie are monitoring the situation, is not the only case of concern in the province of Lecce. In all there are 15 structures with positive results: in six of them there are more than ten cases, in four there are more than twenty. The situation is certainly not as dramatic as in March 2020 when the story of the RSA “La Fontanella” in Soleto made your skin crawl, but you cannot let your guard down.
The data: vaccination at a slow pace
These are the numbers that prompted Asl Lecce to recommend, once again, the anti-Covid vaccination for the elderly, frail and immunocompromised patients. Always according to the data, in fact, it is clear that the campaign for the second recall is not going as it should. Considering the audience of citizens aged 60 and over, it is immediately noticeable how the coverage is low: even net of the four months that must elapse between one administration and another, the trend is sluggish.
Among the over ninety-year-olds, of the 8,730 with three doses, 2,324 also received the fourth (data as of November 25); among the over 80s, 11,671 are the fourth doses administered, about a quarter of the total of the third; in the range between 70 and 79 years, 13,712 received the fourth dose while the third in 70,909; finally, of the 79,211 citizens between 60 and 69 years old with the third dose, only 9,418 did the fourth.
Asl’s invitation to facilities for the elderly
In short, the fact that the health emergency has been declared over does not mean that the coronavirus cannot yet leave an irreversible mark on the most exposed people, by age or general health conditions. The extraordinary commissioner of ASL Lecce then made an appeal: “Thanks to the vaccine, the bloodiest forms of the infection are less widespread – declared Stefano Rossi -, but among the most exposed and at risk subjects are the elderly. For them, the vaccination campaign has never stopped and in recent weeks the Department of Prevention has been working to administer the fourth dose for the over 80s and for the fragile guests of the RSA. We therefore invite the structures that, for the most diverse reasons, have not organized the sessions for the second booster dose for guests to contact the Sisp (Public Health and Hygiene Service, ed) of the relevant Social and Healthcare District. Furthermore, it is always necessary that healthcare workers who assist fragile people adopt all personal protective equipment and that they are in any case vaccinated in line with the regulations of the Puglia Region “.
The occasion is also propitious to remember that the itinerant vaccination campaign (anti-flu and anti-Covid) began today with the Asl Lecce ambulatory camper (at this link the calendar of the 13 stages).
