'Professional caste' accused of jumping vaccine queue

  ROME - Lawyers, politicians, journalists and others from the “professional caste” are being accused of using their privileged position to jump the vaccine queue after it was revealed that 950,000 of those vaccinated so far were not in the categories outlined by the government for priority, reports Il Fatto Quotidiano.

  Italy’s vaccination campaign set out a priority for the vaccine - over 80s, the chronically ill or disabled, teachers, police officers and doctors - but it has been revealed that one in five of all those who have received a dose aren’t any of these things.

  None of this is illegal as there is no ban on those not in priority categories receiving the vaccine, but the vaccine hasn’t yet been offered to them, and they have been accused of denying those who really need it.

  It is not known exactly who these people are, other than that they are not in the obvious categories of risk.

  Some commentators, however, have suggested this scandal has arisen from the lack of a clear national plan and uniform and transparent criteria, with the relevant legislature last being updated on Feb. 8.

  A group of politicians have been asking for the vaccine through petitions and unofficial requests, feeling themselves to be in an at-risk category, however their calls have so far been denied by the authorities. Andrea Cangini, the journalist and Forza Italia Senator, has said, “evidently they fear accusations of privileging ‘the caste’. The Minister for Health Roberto Speranza has still not replied to the President of the Chamber or Senate who for a long Tim have been asking how and when they can vaccinate their respective parliamentarians. They write to him, he doesn’t respond.”

  Many lawyers and judges around Italy have requested vaccinations for those who are still having to come into court, but their appeals have mostly been denied as well. 

  However, the health authorities of Friuli Venezia Giulia decided to vaccinate all those working in Trieste’s appeal court, on the basis that their work is of “public utility.”

 

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