“More aggressive than Covid” –

Another pandemic is inevitable. The WHO talks about disease X. Why? “I continue to say that we are part of a complex system. Pandemics occur on a regular basis over time – replies Ilaria Capua, world-famous virologist, who spent seven years in the United States where she directed the One Health Center in Florida and now at John Hopkins University of Bologna, in an interview with Il Resto del Carlino – I’m sorry to say it, but it’s not that because we had Covid we’re good for the next two hundred years. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Disease ‘WHO is a term to say that something, sooner or later, will arrive. We don’t know what, but it will happen. And it could be even more aggressive than Covid.”

How can we react to this scenario? “We need a capacity to respond to these emergencies that is reasoned, aware and studied also on the basis of the territory”, underlines the scientist. What’s left positive from the pandemic experience? “Certainly an awareness of vulnerability. And this is a good thing. However, I would like to see more attention in implementing behaviors that are preventative for contagion from any pathogen, therefore washing your hands if you have a cough or if you don’t go out or you wear a mask. Now – he observes – we have understood a lot about how infectious diseases circulate. Of course, I also see that there is a sort of collective amnesia. People, having had such a bad time, no longer want to think about it. But this is not good. The Covid virus is still here with us.”