Italy’s Covid-19 vaccinations bypassed the elderly, and more are dying
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5 min read . Updated: 14 Apr 2021, 05:55 PM IST - With a death rate outpacing much of Europe, Italy shifts focus to get vaccines to older people
Thousands of people have been dying each week of Covid-19 in Italy, one of the highest numbers and per-capita death rates in the West.
One factor, according to Italy’s own government: For many weeks, Italy was slow to vaccinate the elderly. While national authorities gave priority to older people and those in nursing homes alongside front-line healthcare workers, regional authorities have given numerous shots to younger workers.
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That contrasts with the U.K., where vaccinating the oldest age groups first has contributed to a sharp fall in Covid-19 deaths.
In the last two weeks of March, Italy reported 102 deaths from Covid-19 for every one million inhabitants, compared with 47 in Spain, 28 in Germany and 11 in the U.K. As of the end of March, people age 70 or older represented 86% of Italy’s 107,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19.
“If we had vaccinated those aged above 70 or 75 from the beginning, we would have avoided so many deaths," said Antonella Viola, a virologist at the University of Padua.
The national government changed its vaccination guidelines in March, postponing eligibility for essential workers to focus on getting shots to the elderly. But many regions have been slow to adapt. Prime Minister Mario Draghi criticized regions for “neglecting the old" in favor of professional groups, who he said have bargaining power. The regions reacted defensively, blaming the central government’s guidelines and a shortage of vaccine doses.
On Friday, Mr. Draghi’s government ordered regions to vaccinate strictly by age group, beginning with older Italians.
Vaccinations in Italy have so far prevented the deaths of more than 4,000 people, according to a study by Matteo Villa, an analyst at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, a Milan think tank. But Italy could have prevented an additional 6,000 deaths if it had made vaccinating people ages 70 and over the priority, Mr. Villa estimates.
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2 min read . 05:32 PM ISTCovid-19-related deaths could decline 70% from their levels in early January once Italy has vaccinated 90% of its over-70s, assuming the virus continues to circulate at the current level, Mr. Villa said.
The government’s initial guidelines for regional authorities, who are implementing the vaccination plan, said priority should go to front-line healthcare workers, nursing-home residents and staff, and people over 80 years old. The guidelines also said workers in essential services should get an early vaccine, without clearly specifying those services. The government didn’t spell out which of the high-priority groups should come first.
Italy’s 20 regions all began early with shots for medical workers, but many didn’t start in parallel with over-80s. By mid-February, Italy had only vaccinated 4% of the over-80s, compared with an EU median of 19%.
Italy is now catching up with other EU countries in vaccinating people over 80, but still lags behind in giving shots to the over-70s. Only 17% of Italian residents ages 70-79 have had one or more doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, the lowest level in the EU apart from Bulgaria.
Some Italian regions have interpreted the healthcare category liberally. Medical researchers, Ph.D. students in medical schools and administrators working in the health sector got their shots before many over-80s, despite rarely having contact with patients.
In the essential-workers category, some regions began vaccinating teachers, lawyers, magistrates, law-enforcement officials and in one region, journalists. Some park rangers, included in the category of law enforcement, got early shots.
Mr. Draghi on Thursday attacked individuals who he said were jumping the vaccination queue, saying they lacked a conscience. Prosecutors in parts of Italy have opened investigations into possible abuse of the vaccine priority list.
Teresa Angela Camelio, a prosecutor from Biella in northern Italy, is investigating whether local health authorities failed to check that people were entitled to be vaccinated, and whether some professionals, such as accountants or lawyers, used their connections with nursing homes to get shots. She has interrogated 120 people so far and placed 23 of them under formal investigation, she said.
Ms. Camelio said there were cases where individuals or professional groups jumped the line by taking advantage of the looseness of the initial rules, but didn’t commit any crime. Others, however, may have broken the law, she said.
She and her husband, a lawyer, could have received early vaccines because their region, Tuscany, has given high priority to legal and judicial professionals, but hasn’t. “We’ll wait for our turn," she said, based on age group.
Italy’s twists and turns over who should get the vaccine made by AstraZeneca PLC—which as of Tuesday accounted for more than a quarter of the vaccine doses received by the country—have caused further complications. In February, Italy’s drug regulator recommended the AstraZeneca shot only for healthy people under 55, later raising the age limit to 65. Regional authorities began giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to teachers and other professions, since they couldn’t use it for the old. The age limit was lifted in March, but regions adapted their practices only slowly. Last week, Italian regulators decided the AstraZeneca vaccine should be given only to over-60s, citing a possible association with rare cases of cerebral blood clots in younger recipients.
Italy’s belated push to vaccinate the over-80s, coupled with the priority given to various professions, has left people in their 70s behind. A bigger share of Italians between 50 and 69 have been vaccinated, even though they are less likely to die from Covid-19.
The Lazio region, which includes Rome, focused on vaccinating older age groups rather than occupational groups. The impact is starting to show: Lazio recorded 766 Covid-19-related deaths in March, compared with 889 in February and 1,230 in January, the month vaccinations began.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
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