The microbiologist Andrea Crisantifull professor of microbiology at the University of Padua, speaks to our microphones to take stock of the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The curve is in place – declares – because there is a extremely large number of protected people who took the second and third doses, in addition to the healed. So this is the best time to liberalize everything, because the longer you wait, the more likely it is that protection will decrease. It is clear that the liberalization of social contacts must be accompanied by a greater rigor to protect fragile people, namely the over 80, transplant recipients and people under steroid treatment, because they have a compromised immune response. Most of the deaths we see every day are in fact of frail peoplein addition to no vax“. “Surely the more people are vaccinated the better, – adds – but now that we are at 92/93% of protection it is it is useless to dare to hunt for the last unvaccinated one to reach 94%. It’s not worth it“.

For Professor Crisanti, therefore, this is the way to follow, but the pitfalls of the pandemic are certainly not over, as recently warned by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which calls for the utmost caution, fearing new variants. “Surely – explains – the wave linked to Omicron is in the process of being resolved. However, this virus surprised us because it has aa capacity for variation extremely high. In England, for example, we already see that the variant “B2” – a sub-variant of Omicron – yes expandingtherefore, although I do not want to be pessimistic, I agree with the ECDC’s position“.