The measures on school and transport will arrive next week: the government confirms that by the summer break scheduled for 6 August there will be a new decree, with interventions aimed at achieving two objectives.
The first, a priority for the executive and reiterated today by both the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and the Minister of Education Patrizio Bianchi, bring all the students back to class in September and say goodbye to Dad; the second, to prevent the return from vacation from turning into a wave of new infections such as to make the virus curve jump and above all to make hospitalizations go up again.
And therefore to intervene on long-distance transport – trains, airplanes and ships – by introducing the obligation of the green pass, most likely from the second half of August. Work is already underway on both dossiers:
Mario Draghi saw Matteo Salvini at Palazzo Chigi precisely to talk about vaccines and green passes; a “fruitful and cordial” meeting according to the government, during which, essentially, the premier explained to the leader of the League that this week will be dedicated to securing the justice reform and closing the complicated mediation between the majority forces, and then switch to Covid.
With Salvini who, on leaving the meeting, did not hide the satisfaction of having obtained a few more days, however reiterating his opposition to the obligation to vaccinate, not only in schools. “I am for freedom”, he says, and finds the support of the president of the Conference of Regions Massimiliano Fedriga: “I would use caution at this time, we must involve people to participate and not feed tensions”.
In the next few hours, the Regions will be presented with the Plan developed by the Ministry of Education on the basis of the indications of the Technical Scientific Committee: getting to the resumption of the school year with at least 60% of students between 12 and 19 years vaccinated (2 , 4 million people, 2 if we consider only those who attend high school) – percentage that for the Commissioner for the emergency Francesco Figliulo can be reached within the first ten days of September
– use of the mask and spacing, with the possibility, however, of exceeding the measure where it is not possible to keep the meter distance, 80% of public transport capacity and possible staggering of entrance hours, even if it would be preferable to postpone those of the public offices rather than the school.
The central issue, however, remains the vaccinations of school staff. To date, the percentage of immunized people has reached 85.5% but with strong regional differences: according to the latest report, 4 regions – Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria, Liguria – and the province of Bolzano have over 30% of teachers who they didn’t even take the first dose. The goal is to arrive in September with 90% of school staff vaccinated with both doses.
There are no supply problems since there are 4.6 million doses in the refrigerators of the Regions and in August, in addition to the approximately 15 million already foreseen, a further million will arrive “thank you
– says Palazzo Chigi confirming the completion of the vaccination for the end of September – to the fruitful conversation between the Prime Minister Mario Draghi and the President of the EU Commission Ursula Von der Leyen ยป. The problem therefore is to convince those who do not want to get vaccinated.