Lopalco reassures the Italians about the impact of Chinese lines in Italy. According to the epidemiologist, vaccinations and the population’s familiarity with the spike protein are the best guarantee of protection against the spread of the pandemic. In China, with the sudden shift from the “zero Covid” strategy to openness, “the classic perfect storm emerged, in which the dire restrictions could not last so long and the virus, once free to circulate, made its entrance almost entirely to the vulnerable.” Population: neither vaccinated nor naturally immunized. Sars-CoV-2 now has a prairie for 1.5 billion people to graze on. Will this be a risk for the future of the pandemic in other countries? Epidemiologist Pier Luigi Lopalco, professor of hygiene at the University of Salento, says he’s fundamentally optimistic.
“I would say that in this situation the probability that a new variant with inferior aggressive properties than those of the Omicron family will develop is quite low,” explains the expert in a post on Facebook. “Low because – he specifies – even if it did happen, in the rest of the world it would still find a population now amply exposed to the notorious spike protein” of the pandemic coronavirus “and therefore partially immune”.