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Status: 11/18/2021 4:39 a.m.
An Afghanistan veteran has turned Italy’s vaccination campaign upside down – with success: The Covid special commissioner in uniform managed to get the country to make rapid progress with both initial vaccinations and boosters.
He is the organizer and the face of the Italian vaccination campaign: Francesco Figliuolo is traveling through the country again these days to check vaccination centers, thank aid workers, promote the organization for the “boosting” and assure the Italians that the vaccination campaign is in progress everything still under control. The country is able to “complete the first vaccination cycle in parallel and administer the third dose at the same time,” he says. 9.4 million vaccine doses are available in the regions. The people in Italy have learned in the past few months: If their Covid special commissioner promises something, they can usually rely on it.
The third vaccination doses have been administered between Bolzano and Palermo since mid-September, as was previously the case in the Italian vaccination campaign, strictly staggered according to risk and age groups. Also for the coming months, says Figliuolo, everything is organized. The peak in vaccination numbers per day would be between December and February: “And we will be able to cope with this with the infrastructure of the vaccination centers that is already available”.
Clear announcements, reliable implementation – Figliuolo’s organization is considered one of the reasons why Italy is more successful than other European countries in its vaccination campaign.
Centrally controlled vaccination center development
There is a reason why the 60-year-old’s statements sometimes sound militarily terse: Figliuolo is a general in the Italian army and has worked as a logistics specialist in Afghanistan and Kosovo, among other places. “Give me your best man for crises,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi is said to have asked Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini when he was looking for a new Covid special commissioner in March. Italy’s vaccination campaign was in crisis at the time, sometimes there weren’t even enough needles for the syringes, long queues were the rule.
Figliuolo turned the entire organization inside out and initiated a vaccination campaign that was largely directed centrally from Rome – despite the regions being responsible for the health system. In the beginning, a network of vaccination centers and the system of logistical distribution were built up with great effort, says Figliuolo: “And then we recruited the staff, from volunteer organizations, the army, civil defense and all categories of health workers, to whom I am always grateful will”.
The result after a good eight months in Figliuolo: Italy has more vaccinated people, fewer corona infected people, fewer seriously ill people compared to most other European countries. The seven-day incidence is currently 90 as low as otherwise only in Malta, Spain and Sweden. With a vaccination rate of 78 percent, Italy is also among the top four in the European Union.
Appearances in full regalia
For the organizational performance of the logistics general there is applause from almost all political camps. For some, the appearance of the sometimes strange looking Covid special commissioner takes some getting used to. The vain Figliuolo makes all public appearances in his olive-green general uniform, with over 20 ribbons on his chest, among other things for his missions abroad. In addition, the vaccination campaign organizer likes to wear his mountain hunter hat with a white goose feather.
Figliuolo’s appearances in uniform may find strange to some – he himself hopes to “create trust” with them.
Image: picture alliance / IPA
Among other things, the writer Michela Murgia said she found a Covid special commissioner in military uniform irritating. Figliuolo reacted downright puzzled: “I hope that this uniform inspires confidence.” He worked his way up from a small background in the military. The uniform, the native of southern Italy says, is for him “a symbol of 40 years of commitment, passion and pride”.
Figliuolo has announced that the new milestone in its Covid vaccination campaign is that 90 percent of all Italians over the age of twelve should be vaccinated at least once by the end of the year. His appeal: “I would ask the Italians, who have behaved really well so far, to make another effort. Then I consider the goal to be absolutely achievable.”
Surveys support Figliuolo’s optimism: in Italy, only seven percent of adults say there is no way they will be vaccinated.