but it’s not Covid. Review drug dosages. Work from home for the most fragile»- Corriere.it

“We don’t use big words. Covid is quite another thing ». It is difficult to share the parallel with the exceptional heat that has hit Italy Francesco Vaia, head of Prevention at the Ministry of Health for a few days. As general director of the Lazzaro Spallanzani institute, he found himself managing the hospital in the critical phase of the pandemic. For this reason, it is now difficult for him to recall that period and all the emergency measures that characterized it, as did Carlo Bonomi, president of Confindustria. Which calls for tackling the new criticality with initiatives similar to those implemented in the years of the waves unleashed by Sars-CoV-2 and hopes for the drafting of a protocol to be signed with the unions to identify “extraordinary solutions that can cover the whole audience of workers”. Among the strategies there is also smart working: the idea is to make it accessible to more categories.

Extreme heat has now become a constant even in our geographical area. In your opinion, he does not deserve to be approached with Covid as a calamity?
«I understand President Bonomi when he worries about factory and office workers. But it’s a gamble to bring up the pandemic. There have been millions of deaths, the world has been shocked, we didn’t know what virus we were dealing with. A serious emergency, which we have countered with exceptional measures and vaccines ».

However, even the heat is the cause of thousands of excess deaths every year, Italy is the country that has had the most in Europe. About eighteen thousand, above Spain and Germany. Doesn’t that seem worthy of a special protocol?
«I don’t go into problems that are not the responsibility of my ministry. I deal with prevention. Heat disasters on health can be prevented with more careful local policies and I believe that the community houses under construction will be able to constitute a point of reference even during the forty-degree heatwaves. The most affected are the elderly”.

More smart working like in the Covid era?
“It would not be wrong to predict that some fragile workers can stay at home. Rather, however, I would ask myself why they prefer not to stay in the office. The employer must prevent by recreating environments where health is protected. Inside and outside. Agile working is a buffer solution».

What is the ministry doing?
«The so-called heat code has been activated in emergency rooms so that citizens receive rapid assistance. The Regions must organize territorial clinics precisely to prevent the population from discharging in hospital. Then strengthening of the medical guard and reactivation of the Uscars, the continuity of care health units, those that must provide for home care. During the Covid they have been of great use ».

What is a recommendation that is not yet well received?
«That of contacting your doctor to check whether the dosage of the therapies prescribed to treat cardiovascular and neurological diseases should be modified. Certain drugs should be taken according to the season and the temperatures of these days require verification because the heat is a factor to keep in mind ».

So you see that the Covid-hot parallelism holds up?
«Yes, from this point of view it is true. The toll-free number 1500 at the Ministry of Health has also been reactivated. They call in many, especially elderly people whose main problem is loneliness. Having contact with the operators is already a relief».

Speaking of pandemic, where are we?
«It’s also over in the numbers. The incidence is lower than 10 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in each region and is stable compared to the previous week. Hospitalizations in medical wards and intensive care units are decreasing with a bed occupancy rate of 1.2 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively. The numbers are so low that it is difficult to get precise data. Now, however, let’s think about next autumn when it will be important to get vaccinated anyway ».