We are almost out of the third wave of the pandemic and even in this case it is not rhetorical to thank everyone, health professionals, patients, and family members for having managed to contain the impact of the pandemic and prevent our clinics from becoming a vehicle for the spread of the infection.
This third wave was characterized by the arrival of some variants of the coronavirus that took over, allowing a more rapid spread of the virus but, at the same time, the vaccination campaign began, and is still in a phase of strong acceleration.
Almost all medical and nurses’ colleagues have been vaccinated: Italy is the first, in terms of number of employees vaccinated, among the nations where Diaverum is present. This is certainly an important result, testifying the great sensitivity of all of us to protect our health and that of our patients.
Also, regarding patients, we have reached the vast majority of vaccinated.
At all levels and in every clinic, there has been a mobilization and active participation in vaccination, which is, without a doubt, the most awaited event for all of us and which represents, without a doubt, the real weapon to defeat the pandemic and gradually reclaim our lives.
Even in our clinics the good outcome of the vaccination campaign is the result of the will and responsibility of the vast majority, the good work of convincing people in the rare cases of scepticism and of having experienced first-hand the excellent tolerability of vaccines.
Now that we are about to come out of the third wave and are gradually returning to a new normal, we absolutely need to keep the lesson in mind.
It is necessary, even if vaccinated, to continue to maintain all precautions and take all the measures we have learned to use in this long year: distancing, masks, hand washing and avoiding gatherings.
We must ensure that our desire for normality and sociality does not lead to irresponsible and harmful behaviours, as happened last summer.
Although the progress of science has shown that in a short time, we can make great strides with the development of different vaccines to prevent the disease, as well as different therapies that can reduce the severity of the infection, it is proven that our behaviours matter.
And this is precisely the reason that in order not to frustrate the efforts made and to maximize the effect of mass vaccination, we must continue not to let our guard down and resume our "normal" life with the necessary gradualness.
In our clinics we will continue to keep an extremely high guard in terms of measures and precautions, and we will also continue to carry out careful monitoring through the execution of rapid swabs for staff and patients, especially during the summer season, which sees the presence of an increased sociability of all those who attend our centres.
Basically, we are almost there…. but it is not over, a lot always depends on us ...