BERGAMO, Italy (AP) – A year ago, the modern Pope John XXIII Hospital in Bergamo was on the verge of collapse as doctors struggled to treat 600 patients, 100 of them in intensive care. Army trucks were transporting the dead from the city’s overburdened crematorium in images now etched into the collective memory of the pandemic.
The situation has improved a lot now: the hospital is treating less than 200 patients with viruses, only a quarter of whom need intensive care.
But still unchanged as the death rate in Italy increases again is that the victims remain predominantly elderly, with vaccination initiatives stumbling across the country and elsewhere in Europe.
“No, that thing, unfortunately, I was not able to protect the elderly, to make it clear how important it would be to protect the elderly,” said Dr. Luca Lorini, head of intensive care at the hospital appointed in the mid-20th century Pope of the century born in Bergamo. “If I have 10 elderly people over 80 and they get COVID, in their age group, eight out of 10 die.”
This was true in the first terrible wave and remained “absolutely the same” in subsequent peaks, he said.
Promises to vaccinate all Italians over 80 by the end of March have been terribly insufficient, amid well-documented interruptions in vaccine supplies and organizational deficiencies. Only a third of the 7.3 million doses administered in Italy so far have been for people in this age group, with more than half of those carrying World War II memories still awaiting their first injection.
“We should have finished with this already,” Lorini told the Associated Press.
Italy’s new prime minister, Mario Draghi, promised during a visit to Bergamo on Thursday that the vaccination campaign would be accelerated. His comments were made when he opened a park to honor the country’s more than 104,000 dead in the pandemic. In early March, two-thirds of virus-related deaths in Italy occurred among people over 80; the average age of those killed in Italy’s pandemic is now over 80, after reaching 85 last summer.
“We are here to promise our elderly people that it will never happen again that fragile people are not properly helped and protected. Only then will we respect those who left us, ”said Draghi on the anniversary of the first army convoy with the virus killed in Bergamo.
Italy can expect to see its future by looking at Britain, the first country in Europe to authorize widespread vaccinations. More than 38% of the UK population has been vaccinated since the beginning of December, starting with people over 70, health professionals and home care workers.
Britain, which leads Europe in virus deaths, saw the death toll among those over the age of 75 decrease from 75% of the total before the vaccination campaign to 64% in the week ending March 5. Deaths in Britain fell from an average of 128 per day in the most recent seven-day period, from an increase of 1,248 in the week ending January 20 – also thanks to blocking measures.
Together with health professionals, Spain, France and Italy prioritized the vaccination of nursing home residents, by far the most affected population in the spring increase. They account for nearly a third of those killed in Italy’s first wave and a third of France’s pandemic death toll, almost 91,100.
In France, infections and deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes have shown a steady downward trend as the number of vaccinees has increased, with 85% having received at least one vaccine. The first signs are that the proportion of ICU patients aged 75 and over has also started to decline since February, with almost half of this age group at least partially vaccinated. The improved picture for residents of nursing homes occurs despite a further worsening of the outbreak in France.
Spain saw a huge drop in infections and deaths in nursing homes after the first phase of its vaccination program, with a significant decline in deaths.
In Italy, where vaccination of nursing home residents began in January, compared with mid-February for other elderly people, the lowest infection rates in nursing homes have been declared “an initial success”.
“We cannot count this as a victory, absolutely not, of the vaccination strategy”, recently recognized Dr. Giovanni Rezza, director of infectious diseases at the Ministry of Health.
On Friday, Draghi said Italy plans to administer 500,000 doses a day for the next month, from a current daily level of around 165,000.
With Italy’s infection rate rising for the seventh consecutive week, driven by rapid variation in the UK, more than 2.5 million Italians over 80 are waiting for their vaccines. What’s worse, many still have no indication of when they will be able to catch them.
Luca Fusco founded a group to remember the dead and defend justice in his memory after his father died of COVID-19 on March 11, 2020.
His mother, who turned 83 on the anniversary of her husband’s death, has yet to make an appointment for vaccination more than a month after making the request. Fusco said this is true for most of the hundreds of elderly people in his small town near Bergamo, adding that they were forced to travel 30 miles (20 kilometers) to get each shot, a burden for many.
Italy’s goal is to vaccinate 80% of the population by September, and Draghi has appointed an army general to relaunch the campaign. Fusco said his group, “Noi Denunceremo,” (“We Will Denounce”) will act as a watchdog on the issue.
“Draghi said that by September, we will all be vaccinated. Perfect, ”said Fusco. “We take note of that. If that is not true, we will make our voices heard … and ask Draghi for explanations. “
___
Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London, John Leicester and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed.
___
Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/hub/understanding-the-outbreak