Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts

Monday, 5 July 2021

Italy's Draghi dismisses China's COVID vaccine, casts doubt on Sputnik

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said China's anti-COVID vaccine did not fully work and questioned whether Russia's Sputnik jab ...

June 25, 2021

8:21 PM +08Last Updated 10 days ago

BRUSSELS, June 25 (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said China's anti-COVID vaccine did not fully work and questioned whether Russia's Sputnik jab would ever get approval from European regulators.

"The Chinese vaccine ... has shown itself not to be adequate. You can see that from Chile's experience of tackling the epidemic," Draghi told reporters at the end of a European Union summit.

Chile has relied heavily on the COVID-19 shot developed by China's Sinovac, but health authorities in the South American country have questioned how effective it is against more transmissible virus variants and are also looking into how long it remains effective once injected. read more

A study published in April said the Chinese vaccine proved minimally effective at preventing illness after one dose. With a second jab, it was 67% effective in preventing symptomatic infection, 85% effective in preventing hospitalizations and 80% in preventing deaths.

Draghi also questioned Russia's Sputnik vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had been expected to conclude its review of the Russian jab and issue a decision in May or June. However, approval was delayed because the makers missed a June 10 deadline to submit data, sources told Reuters earlier this month. read more

"The Russian vaccine Sputnik has never been able to get approval from EMA and perhaps it never will," Draghi said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italys-draghi-dismisses-chinas-covid-vaccine-casts-doubt-sputnik-2021-06-25/

JUNE 25, 2021

Sputnik vaccine may never be approved in EU: Italy PM

Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine may never be approved by the European Union, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Friday, as he also cast doubts on China's Sinovac jab.

"Sputnik... has not yet managed to obtain and perhaps will never have the approval of EMA (the European Medicines Agency)," Draghi said in Brussels.

Meanwhile, "the Chinese vaccine ... has shown to be inadequate, look at the experience in Chile," the Italian leader added.

Chile has relied heavily on the Chinese Sinovac jab for its immunisation campaign, and is now considering adding a third dose to boost protection against new variants.

Both the Sputnik V and Sinovac vaccines are under a "rolling review" process by the EMA, which is a step prior to seeking formal authorisation.

In his comments, Draghi said there was a need for a "strengthening and maybe also a reform of EMA" to avoid a repeat of recent "considerable confusion" on vaccines.

He referred to a "certain discrepancy of pronouncements" over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines between EMA and national medicine bodies.

Draghi was speaking at the end of a two-day European Union summit, in which he said leaders had a general discussion on the state of play of coronavirus.

"The pandemic is not over, we are not yet out of it," the Italian leader said, pointing to the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant in Britain.

In a statement, Italy's national health institute ISS said the Alpha variant was still the most common in the country in June, with a prevalence of 74.9 percent.

At the same time, the share of coronavirus cases linked to the Delta variant had risen to 16.8 percent as of June 21, from 4.2 percent in May, ISS said.

Explore further

EU regulators start review of China's Sinovac vaccine

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-sputnik-vaccine-eu-italy-pm.html

23 Jun 21 Italian PM receives Pfizer as 2nd dose after AstraZeneca

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi acquired the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine as a second shot, Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

June 23, 2021

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi acquired the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine as a second shot, Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

The newspaper reported in regards to the second vaccine injection to the top of the Italian authorities in its report on the vaccination of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both European leaders acquired vaccine injections from the UK-Swedish firm AstraZeneca as the primary dose.

Last week, Draghi supported the mixed use of Covid-19 vaccines. According to him, after the primary shot, he developed a low variety of antibodies, so he was suggested to make use of one other vaccine as a second dose.

On Monday, in keeping with Corriere, Draghi acquired an injection of the Pfizer vaccine. Merkel was inoculated with the Moderna vaccine as the second dose.

https://newsdailynetwork.com/italian-pm-receives-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-as-2nd-dose-after-astrazeneca/

Friday, 30 April 2021

Coronavirus: Chinese targeted as Italians panic

In Italy and elsewhere, panic is spreading much faster than the coronavirus itself. Chinese businesses are empty, shopkeepers are shutting down and Chinese nationals are being targeted.

This article is more than 1 year old

By Mark Lowen
BBC Rome correspondent

Published: 4 February 2020

Related Topics

Coronavirus pandemic

Veronica Li points to the bills piling up at her Chinese restaurant close to the Colosseum.

"Usually 50 or 60 people come here for dinner," she says, "but last Saturday there were two. I've already had to let go of the three staff helping my husband and me. If it goes on like this, I'll have to close next month."

In Italy and elsewhere, panic is spreading much faster than the coronavirus itself. Chinese businesses are empty, shopkeepers are shutting down and Chinese nationals are being targeted.

At a bar beside the Trevi fountain, a notice was put up banning customers from China.
A music school in Rome told East Asian students not to attend classes due to incidents of racism.
Four governors of northern Italian regions called for children returning from trips to China not to attend school for 14 days.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

View original tweet on Twitter

The incidents have prompted condemnation from the Italian authorities.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte reprimanded the regional governors, telling them that they were not competent to make such a call and that nothing justified such fear.

Yet his government's declaration of a six-month state of emergency, following two cases of coronavirus in Italy, is the first such decision due to health reasons in the country's history - and has increased alarm.

Worries mounted further when 6,000 cruise ship passengers were stopped from disembarking for hours at a port near Rome due to a suspected case of the virus on board. Tests proved negative - but rumours flew quickly.

Hotel Palatino front in Milan — image captionTwo Chinese tourists staying at the Hotel Palatino in Rome contracted the coronavirus

Italy has banned all flights to and from China and placed 56 Italian nationals returning from Wuhan in quarantine: measures echoed by many other governments and widely seen as a proportionate response.

But it's when that reaction filters down to the streets that it can mix with xenophobia and become toxic.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International has decried a "shameful wave of Sinophobia" caused by "fake news, irresponsible statements by political leaders, incomprehensible decisions by local governors and the obsessive focus of the media on coronavirus… this is a country ready to hate".

A Chinese tourist by the Trevi fountain in Rome, taking a selfie while wearing a face mask — image captionMillions of Chinese tourists travel to Italy every year

Some 300,000 Chinese nationals live in Italy and five million Chinese tourists visit every year, pouring much-needed money into the stagnant Italian economy.

So the government in Rome is walking a tightrope: reassure its citizens, while not scaring off Chinese investment or the important relationship with Beijing.

A hundred metres from Veronica Li's restaurant is the Hotel Palatino, where the two Chinese tourists who contracted coronavirus were staying.

The manager refused to talk - but staff spoke of a "quieter season". Several cancellations have been reported.

Veronica, who has been in Italy for 21 years, has asked the landlord to drop the monthly rent of €8,500 (£7,200; $9,380) - but to no avail.

Her daughter says she is being bullied at school. "She didn't want to go," Veronica says, "but I said 'if you stay at home, they'll think you're sick with the virus.'"

As we speak, two Chinese tourists come into the restaurant, asking to use the bathroom. They had been turned away from everywhere else they had tried.

'As if we were the disease': coronavirus brings prejudice for Italy's Chinese workers

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Xenophobia and job losses prompt textile industry staff in Tuscany to consider returning to China

Global development is supported by

About this content

Luca Muzi

Wed 25 Mar 2020 07.00 GMT

A poster in Milan reads: ‘The virus is the enemy not the Chinese people.’ Photograph: Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters

At the beginning of February, Ilaria Santi, a councillor in the Italian city of Prato, in Tuscany, visited the canteen of an elementary school. A Chinese girl asked her: “Aren’t you afraid of eating next to me?”

“I replied: ‘Why should I be afraid?’ and she said: ‘Afraid that I infect you with the coronavirus.’” I replied that the virus was unfortunately in the minds of too many people,” said Santi.

“Another Chinese boy asked: ‘So can I sit here too?’ and I said: ‘Yes’.”

It was a revealing conversation in this region with a large Chinese population, in a country in lockdown over coronavirus.

“In the past few weeks, we have seen Chinese children at school [being] called ‘Cinavirus’, [as well as] verbal confrontations between classmates and physical attacks [on pupils],” said Davide Finizio, secretary of the buddhist Pu Hua Si temple, a hub for the Chinese community in Prato.

Finizio is monitoring cases of discrimination, and is attempting to counter prejudice by encouraging Chinese people to donate face masks and sanitiser to Italian hospitals.

“I know of people who have decided to go back to China, where they feel safer,” he said.

Some have already left, others have bought plane tickets home.

The past few weeks have brought numerous reports of xenophobia in northern Italy, which is home to more than 50% of Italy’s Chinese population. Last month Qian Zhang, 26, who owns a bar with his wife near Bassano del Grappa, told Il Giornale di Vicenza that he was attacked with a bottle and told he was not allowed to enter a petrol station because: “You’re Chinese, you have coronavirus.”

Coronavirus, racism and solidarity, before and after Italy's lockdown – video

La Stampa reported that a couple in Turin, Chen and Ye, were assaulted with bottles by two Italian teenagers. They refused to go to hospital for fear of further discrimination. “They told us: ‘You are not human, you are the virus.’ As if we were a disease, just because we were born in China,” Chen told the paper.

A 29-year-old Chinese man was attacked in Milan by an assailant who shouted: “You have coronavirus.”

But there is another reason the Chinese community is considering leaving the country. Prato is a focal point for the national textile industry. Many of the factories, owned by Chinese entrepreneurs, produce clothes for the Italian fashion industry. The spread of coronavirus in China and Italy has had severe repercussions for the industry locally, and workers have been laid off.

“There has been a heavy decrease in work. Many factories have decided to close, because it is not sustainable,” said Marco Wong, a Prato councillor.

An estimated 310,000 Chinese people live in Italy, accounting for 8.3% of the country’s non-EU citizens, the third largest community of foreign nationals residing in the country. More than half live in the north, with 16% residing in the provinces of Prato and Florence. Most work in the textile industry.

About 30,000 Chinese people work in the Prato textile district; many don’t have contracts, or work part-time, leaving them with limited or no access to social support from the government in the event they are laid off.

Flavio Hu, from the Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Association, fears the lockdown, which now covers the whole country, could mean the end of the region’s textile industry. “We are processing orders received before the crisis, but the buyers are not coming to place new ones. Moreover, fashion wholesale centres in Milan and Padova are now closed,” he said.

“It is not possible to have precise data, but the estimate is that losses for Chinese entrepreneurs in the area of Prato are around €10m (£9m) per month.”

A report from the International Monetary Fund predicted Italy’s GDP will fall 0.6% in 2020 while the public debt will rise to 137% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Italian Chamber of Fashion recently stated that “we must regard the fashion industry as one of the most affected by the diffusion of the virus Covid-19, alongside tourism and transportation”.

“The next weeks are crucial for the economy,” said Matteo Caroli, an economist from Luiss University and expert in international business management.

“We are facing a big challenge: contain the virus and protect the economy. If the epidemic stops between April and May, it will be possible to contain the losses, otherwise we will face devastating scenarios with job losses and layoffs for many workers.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/25/as-if-we-were-the-disease-coronavirus-brings-prejudice-for-italys-chinese-workers

Healthwise

Pages