From October 1st, compulsory on buses, metro, hospitals and RSA. Galli and Cicozzi: “Still too many cases”
Stop to masks on public transport from 30 September. From 1 October it will no longer be compulsory to wear protective equipment on public transport, including vehicles used for school transport, and to enter hospitals, medical clinics and Rsa.
“To date, the situation allows it. And, as I can also see from personal experience on trains, there is now a lot of intolerance, non-compliance with the obligation and difficulties in enforcing it”, comments the virologist to Adnkronos Salute. Fabrizio Pregliascoprofessor of Hygiene at the State University of Milan, underlining however the need to continue to carefully monitor the epidemiological situation and, in case of deterioration, possibly restore restrictive measures.
At the moment, according to the expert, “there is a slightly excessive perception of tranquility, while in reality the incidence starts to rise again – he notes – and we absolutely expected this. We will see how the situation will be, I hope that yes. traits of a rising wave and not of a wave in quantitative terms and above all of effects on the health service “. Therefore, for Pregliasco “it is useless to mortgage the future. We must – and by now we have learned it with this Covid – manage things with maximum speed and ability to react, but we always remain with attention to the future and to scenarios that could get worse” and which in this case will require a “resumption of certain strings, which we obviously hope should not be implemented”.
On the same line the virologist Mauro Pistello, director of the virology unit of the university hospital of Pisa, vice president of the Italian Society of Microbiology. “From 1 October it is right to completely abolish the obligation to wear masks on public transport and in hospitals and RSA. We are all vaccinated or cured” of Covid-19, he tells Adnkronos Health “I believe that the time has come to make the mask a memory – continues Pistello – But this does not mean forgetting the presence of Sars-CoV-2, which is there and will still be “.
According to Massimo Galli, former director of the infectious diseases department of the Sacco hospital in Milan, “keep the mask on buses, and in general on public transport, but even more in hospitals remains a useful precaution, a measure of civility in the face of a pandemic that it is not over yet and, at the moment, we cannot predict the evolution of the next few weeks “. “As far as buses are concerned, this is an indication that is not already being followed much”, observes Galli. “At this stage we are trying to understand what could happen with regard to a possible resumption of infections. We do not know. So the attitudes that can be had are two: that of removing the mask saying ‘then we will see’, or that of keeping it with a prudential choice. My suggestion, in any case – indicates the infectious disease specialist – is that people who have conditions at risk continue, whatever the decision of the authorities, to keep it for prudence. The mask is a protection tool “, underlines Galli, according to whom “it would be civil for everyone to continue to take her to places where there are many people confined indoors, to protect themselves, but also others”.
“We are on September 26, we have not yet had a real spike in disease. It may not even be there, but we do not know”, highlights the expert. For this reason “individual prudence remains important, like the civilized attitude of continuing to wear a mask”.
Definitely against Massimo Ciccozzi, head of the Medical Statistics and Epidemiology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Campus Bio-Medico in Rome: “We see a slight increase in infections, which are still too many, so I think it is too early to say goodbye definitively to obligation of the mask on the means of transport. And I would also say to leave it for the RSA and for the hospitals where there is a question of public health “. According to Ciccozzi “we must wait for the endemic peak” or “actually understand if it has been reached or not, if we reach 3 thousand cases a day it could be an endemic peak downwards and this then – he concludes – could also lead to the decision to remove the obligation some masks, but it doesn’t seem to me to be the current situation in Italy “.
Source-www.adnkronos.com