Dario Martini April 14, 2022
Italy ranks sixth in Europe when it comes to vaccination coverage of the entire population. The Figliuolo campaign enabled the administration of 136.2 million doses. Nevertheless, we had to record more Covid deaths than others within the EU. If we just look at the recent wave of the pandemic, twelve countries have fewer deaths than we do relative to population. This does not mean that vaccinations are not given. Far from it. A study published yesterday by the Higher Institute of Health certifies that the vaccination campaign from January 2021 to January 2022 saved 150,000 lives.
Our country has often been presented as a “model” for the rest of the world. Prevention measures and the vaccination campaign should have highlighted us in the fight against Covid. However, the data paint a different picture. We considered the period from September 1, 2021 to April 9, 2022, when the first vaccination cycle was completed and most of the population was now protected from the virus. During the period in question, the Ministry of Health recorded 31,573 deaths of positive people, which is 530 per million population. As mentioned, there are twelve other countries that have done better than us. In first place is the Netherlands with just over four thousand deaths, which corresponds to 235 deaths per million inhabitants. Not only. Holland vaccinated much less than Italy, 71.2% versus 79.5% (this data takes into account all citizens, even children for whom the serum has not been approved).
The other similarly sized countries like Italy also had fewer deaths. France, which has a vaccination rate similar to ours, recorded 423 deaths per million inhabitants, Germany 474, Spain 403. This last case is symbolic. The Spanish introduced much less stringent restrictions than those decided by the Draghi government. Despite this, they have not experienced a catastrophe. Like Sweden, often criticized in Italian media for allowing the virus to circulate freely, which “only” had 3,814 deaths (368 per million) in the winter wave.
We will never have proof of what would have happened in Italy if measures such as compulsory vaccination for over 50s and the super green passport in the workplace had not been imposed. However, one thing is certain: in many European countries it has not been done and has gone better. But there are also cases where things went worse. As in the Baltic, Baltic and Eastern European countries. Thanks to a very low vaccination coverage (Bulgaria has 29.6% of the vaccinated population) they have a very high number of deaths. Worst of all Bulgaria, followed by Croatia and Latvia.
However, it is worth recalling the clear link between vaccines and health benefits. The ISS report found that from January 2021 to January 2022 in Italy “about 8 million cases, over 500,000 hospitalizations, over 55,000 ICU hospitalizations and about 150,000 deaths were avoided”. The study also highlights that “the distribution of avoided events was not homogeneous over the period studied. In the first half of 2021, the number of events avoided was limited due to low vaccination coverage, while in the second half of 2021 and January 2022 it is estimated that vaccination prevented more than half of the expected events. As might be expected, the over 80 age group benefited three times as much as the rest of the population. There are also geographic differences. “It can be observed writes the ISS that the relative number of avoided events is slightly higher in the center and north of the country, where a higher vaccination coverage was achieved and more timely than in the south”.