A year has passed since we could not go to visit our closest loved ones, if not for a brief and fleeting greeting, because all of Italy was in the red zone during the Christmas holidays. No table, no dinner, nothing at all. This year, in addition to the newfound freedom, despite the pandemic is still alive and well and the Covid circles with the new Omicron variant, you can not even make the comparison, for the better, compared to what lived 365 days ago.
What we have (more) than Christmas 2020
Numbers don’t lie: first of all we have i vaccines, which save lives and allow us to live between white and yellow areas but in (almost) total freedom. No curfew, no maximum number of guests, maximum attention to spacing and the use of masks certainly but compared to what has been experienced it is a health walk. If it is true that last year for Christmas we had 18 thousand cases against almost 55 thousand today, we remind the no vax by nature that the dead were 505, now they are 144. Almost four times fewer, 361 lives saved thanks to Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. Bassetti and many colleagues have said it several times: “Who cares if my nose runs or I have a fever of 37, the important thing is not to end up in intensive care or die”. Well, if your nose runs and you have a Covid-19 fever it is thanks to the antibodies developed following the vaccination: in fact, the vast majority of the 55 thousand infected are asymptomatic or slightly symptomatic.
How many hospitalizations (less)
Again for those who are still not convinced (10% of the population), here are the numbers of hospitalizations last Christmas: 24,070 in 2020 against 8,892 in 2021 for ordinary departments, 2,589 in 2020 against 1,071 now. In the first case we have only a third of hospitalized people (among other things, almost always unvaccinated people), in the second case less than half (we are 60-65% less) are people who have finished intensive care. Again, doctors inform that the most serious are those without vaccination or with an incomplete vaccination course. “Vaccines make the difference, because the immunization campaign, which started on December 27 last year, had not yet started at Christmas“.
What happened last year
Thanks to lower hospital pressure and vaccines, therefore, there is no longer the obligation to move “to a single private home, located in the same region, once a day“, respecting the curfew and”within the limits of two people“, in force from 24 to 6 January of last year. Not only that: you could not leave your region except for health reasons or join non self-sufficient people after certification (and valid motivation). On 25 and 26 December and January 1 was forbidden to leave one’s own municipality except for special exceptions. No second home, no possibility of skiing, no travel abroad. All closed.
Covid killed a lot, today it kills a lot less. A year ago we were at the mercy of a virus never seen before, today we know the opponent and we know how to face him. So no cinemas, theaters, stadiums, exhibitions, museums, nothing. And it would have been the same in the first months of 2021. We are all (or almost) grateful to Science and Medicine. And the vaccines that allow us an almost normal life. It is not over, it is still long, but those who rattle off data without explaining that the situation is different tells only part of the truth.
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