The new rules for booking covid vaccine based on age

Not only age: among the priority criteria for anti-Covid vaccination there are diseases “at risk” and “extreme vulnerability”. The site, the Ministry of Health, has updated the National Strategic Vaccine Plan  with an additional text called Interim Recommendations on the target groups of anti-Sars-CoV-2 / Covid-19 vaccination, approved on February 8. “The objective of the document – it is observed – is to identify the order of priority of the categories of citizens to be vaccinated after those of phase 1 (health and social health workers, staff and guests of residential facilities for the elderly, elderly over 80 years ). In particular, the specific objective is to establish the order of priority with particular emphasis on health considerations, defined on the basis of the criterion of the greatest risk of lethality related to Covid-19 “. 

In addition to age, a list of 15 diseases at risk and extreme vulnerability are the criteria underlying the six priority categories for anti-Covid vaccinations, listed in the new National Vaccine Plan. After Phase 1 already underway, reserved for health / social health personnel, guests and staff of the RSA and the over 80s, Phase 2 includes the over 70s (categories 2 and 3) due to the higher lethality rate of Covid infected. -19 observed in this age group (“the lethality rate of those who are infected is 10%”). 

Diseases at risk

The table of priority diseases includes: respiratory diseases; cardiocirculatory; neurological conditions and disabilities (physical, sensory, intellectual, physical); diabetes; cystic fibrosis; HIV; kidney failure; hypertension; autoimmune, hepatic and cerebrovascular diseases; oncological pathology; down syndrome; organ transplant; severe obesity. Within this group of pathologies, a higher priority subgroup was considered represented by pathologies for which extremely vulnerable people can be identified. 

The new calendar

They will be  224.033 million vaccines to be administered until June 2022. In the field of those already-BionTech Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Modern; then also the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson (single-dose expected already in the second quarter of 2021), Curevac (in the estimate again for this second quarter) and Sanofi / GSK (from the fourth quarter of the year). This is the list of the six categories proposed in the new Ministerial Plan:  

Category 1 – Extremely vulnerable people, suffering from conditions that due to pre-existing organ damage or due to an impaired immune response to Sars-CoV-2 have a particularly high risk of developing serious or lethal forms of Covid, starting from from 16 years of age: in all they would be 2,083,609.

Category 2 – Persons aged 75 to 79: a total of 2,644,013.

Category 3 – People between 70 and 74 years old: a total of 3,324,360.

Category 4 – People with increased clinical risk if infected with Sars-CoV-2, from 16 to 69 years: they are 5,845,447. 

Category 5 – People aged 55 to 69 without conditions that increase clinical risk: in all 11,901,855.  

Category 6 – People between 18 and 54 without conditions that increase clinical risk: a total of 29,051,793.    

As regards the quarterly plans, the estimates of the vaccine doses to be administered for each quarter are revised: 14.5 million doses in the first quarter of 2021; then it goes to 64.5 million in the second quarter of this year; to over 68 million in the third quarter and to 28.2 million in the fourth. Then 28.1 million doses in the first quarter of 2022 and 20.19 million doses in the second quarter of next year. Total – considering the 456 thousand doses last December – the 224,033 million vaccine doses that the citizens of Italy should receive by June next year.