Covid, the EU will enforce vaccine contracts. Michel: 'We will use all legal means'

2021-01-24T14:40:29.662Z

Boccia: 'Guaranteed vaccine calls, herd immunity slide'. Conte: 'Serious violations of vaccine contracts, we will appeal'. The controversy arises over Pfizer and Astrazeneca delays. Italy risks dropping from 8 to 3.4 million doses (ANSA)

The EU intends to "enforce the contracts signed" by Pfizer on vaccines, if necessary also by resorting to legal means.

This was stated by

Charles Michel

, President of the European Council, host of the 'Grand Rendez-vous' broadcast of radio Europe 1. "We can use all the legal means at our disposal for this purpose", said Michel.

"It is clear that, if there are no vaccines, herd immunity will be postponed by a few weeks or months.

It does not depend on us but on the companies that supply the vaccines", explained the Minister of Regional Affairs

Francesco Boccia

to SkyTg24, confirming that the recalls will be "made and guaranteed" but that the plan must be reformulated "on the basis of reduced numbers".

"We expect those numbers to be restored" he added, underlining that "if there are production problems" due to delays "they must explain them to us" but, "if the vaccines destined for the EU end up in other continents, it is very serious".

The game is therefore all about vaccines and the necessary updating of the vaccination plan

The Minister of Regional Affairs

Francesco Boccia has called a summit with the Regions.

At the meeting also the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza and the Commissioner for Emergency Domenico Arcuri.

There are 13,331 new cases of Covid in Italy in 24 hours

, for a total of 2,455,185 since the beginning of the emergency.

The increase in victims, on the other hand, is 488, which brings the total number to over 85 thousand: 85,162.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, the current positives in Italy drop below 500 thousand for the first time in weeks: 498,834, with a decrease of 3,219 compared to Friday.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, however, 1,871,189 patients have been discharged or recovered, with an increase of 16,062 in the last 24 hours.

There are 2,386 patients admitted to intensive care, a decrease of 4 in the balance between entries and exits compared to yesterday.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, daily admissions are 174. In the ordinary wards, 21,403 patients are hospitalized, down by 288 units compared to Friday.

There are 286,331 tests for the coronavirus (molecular and antigenic) carried out in Italy in 24 hours.

On Friday, according to data from the Ministry of Health, there were 264,728.

The positivity rate drops by half a point to 4.6% (it was 5.1%).

"There is no shortage of 'doses' of Pfizer vaccine, but the precision syringes that allow you to extract the right amount are not proportionate to the vials: if we had those we could always have six doses per vial and not 5, as suggested by Aifa. and try to bridge the gap ".

This is what some

vaccination centers of different Regions

(including Lombardy, Sicily, Emilia Romagna)

state in summary

, which report for this week the non-arrival of precision syringes (for Calabria instead the problem was found the previous week) part of the emergency commissioner structure.

Commissioner Arcuri's reply was not late: "

It is false" that fewer precision syringes were sent to the vaccination centers.

"Fewer syringes were distributed this week for the trivial reason that Pfizer sent us fewer vaccine vials."

This will continue next week as "20 per cent fewer vials will arrive than announced".

Prime Minister Conte

intervenes in

the

affair

: "

The slowdowns in deliveries" of vaccines "constitute serious contractual violations,

which produce enormous damage to Italy and other European countries, with direct repercussions on the life and health of citizens and on our economic fabric- already strongly tried by a year of pandemic. We will

use all the instruments and all legal initiatives, as we are already doing with Pfizer-Biontech, to claim compliance with contractual commitments

and to protect our national community in all forms ", he the premier wrote on Facebook talking about AstraZeneca.

"The latest news coming to us from the manufacturers of anti-Covid vaccines is worrying - Conte wrote on Facebook -. Pfizer-Biontech first communicated a slowdown in the distribution to EU countries of the vaccine doses already planned. But even more worrying are yesterday's news released by AstraZeneca, whose vaccine is waiting to be distributed soon also in the EU.

If the 60% reduction of the doses that will be distributed in the first quarter were confirmed, it would mean that 3.4 million would be delivered in Italy doses instead of 8 million ".

The first delivery of AstraZeneca's vaccine, if it gets the green light from EMA on January 29, is expected to be done on February 15

According to what has been learned, this is what

the emergency commissioner Domenico Arcuri said during the meeting with the Regions

The other two deliveries would instead be scheduled for February 28 and March 15.

At the end of March, about 15 million doses of the vaccine will be delivered in Italy, the Commissioner for Emergency would have said, explaining that at the moment from Astrazeneca, if approved by Ema, we will not have the 8 million previously insured, but 3.4 by the end of March , in addition to the doses of Moderna and Pfizer.

On Monday, the Avvocatura dello Stato will have completed the legal investigations and Italy will proceed against Pfizer on three channels

: a warning for non-compliance to be presented in Italy, a complaint to the prosecutors for potential damage to health and a request on behalf of the Italian government and regions to the Brussels Bar for non-compliance.

A permanent coordination between the State and the Regions "until the companies give definitive certainties" on the delivery of vaccines: this is

what

the Minister of Regional Affairs Francesco Boccia

proposed

during the meeting with the regions,

asking everyone "maximum solidarity and institutional tones ".

"We are convened - he added - for each update that Commissioner Arcuri will have to communicate to us on vaccines, distribution and discussions with pharmaceutical companies".

ISS-HEALTH MONITORING

- "This week, some regions have low risk, others moderate but there are still high risk regions; so the overall assessment tells us that we need to pay attention to the situation.

So the message is that there is a slight decrease in the incidence in the country but which is far from allowing the tracing of cases to be resumed, so the epidemic is out of control because tracing is not yet possible ".

This was stated by the director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health

Gianni Rezza

, at the press conference at the ministry on the data of the weekly monitoring on the progress of the epidemic.

"The epidemic remains in a delicate phase and we must not loosen measures:

when

we loosen

them the virus starts running again, it is a stop and go. So it is better to keep the measures to avoid too high circulation. We must be very quick in identifying variants and take measures to restrict mobility in the places where this happens, so we must keep our guard very high ".

"After the peak we are at about 20-25 thousand doses of vaccine administered per day and this is due to supply cuts.

Ema's opinion on the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected on January 29, which communicated a reduction in production capacity

and this it will require a remodeling of the vaccination campaign

", explained the President of the Higher Health Council Franco Locatelli.

"We can say that

at the end of January Italy should have about 2.5 million doses available

that are needed for both first immunizations and boosters".

To date, there is no evidence that the available vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, do not offer coverage against the variants of the virus.

So the message right now is absolutely reassuring."

To date, a little more than 70% of the vaccine doses delivered have been administered

, this is because a rate must be maintained to guarantee recalls.

We remain at the top of the group of countries that have administered more vaccines in Europe - explained Locatelli - and we are currently second after Germany

and this in spite of the reduction in the number of doses observed this week, -29%, and also in spite of the further reduction announced by Pfizer also for next week and quantifiable in the order of 20% ".

Brussels summons AstraZeneca after the announcement of the delays.

Commissioner Kyriakides, 'profound discontent'

After five weeks of uninterrupted growth, the transmissibility index Rt in Italy

drops

to 0.97,

and admissions to intensive care units and ordinary wards also drop.

But it is too early to think of an actual turnaround of the epidemic curve from Covid-19.

The picture that emerges from the latest weekly monitoring by the Higher Institute of Health and Ministry of Health continues to be a worrying picture, albeit with some initial signs of improvement (data relating to the week 11/1 / 2021-17 / 1 / 2021, updated on 1/20/2021) on the progress of the SarsCov2 epidemic in the country.

Currently there are ten regions with Rt above 1. Molise and Sicily lead the Rt ranking with 1.38 and 1.27 respectively.

This is the picture of the Rt punctual region by region contained in the draft of the 36 / o weekly monitoring Iss-Ministry of Health with data as of 20 January 2021 relating to the week 11/1 / 2021-17 / 1/2021.

THE ISS PRESS CONFERENCE

REGION - RT

Abruzzo 1.05

Basilicata 1.12

Calabria 1.02

Campania 0.76

E-R 0.97

FVG 0.88

Lazio 0.94

Liguria 0.99

Lombardy 0.82

Marche 0.98