«Starting from today, I am leaving the University of Padua».
This was announced by Andrea Crisanti, senator of the Democratic Party and now a former professor of Microbiology at the Paduan university . Role that he decided to leave following the investigation into the rapid swabs of the Padua prosecutor's office and the diffusion of some telephone interceptions (aired tonight in the episode of Report) concerning him. "I want to be free to make any decision that concerns me, also given that there are many wiretaps that also concern other university professors."
The whole story has to do with the widespread use by the Veneto of antigen tests in hospitals and in nursing homes for the elderly and their reliability. The Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into the case - on the basis of a complaint made by Crisanti himself - investigating Roberto Rigoli, former coordinator of the Microbiologies of the Veneto and Patrizia Simionato, former general manager of Azienda Zero.
The two have to answer for false ideology and disturbed freedom of choice of the contractor . The next hearing is set for February 6. According to the indictment, Rigoli, in charge of confirming the clinical-scientific suitability of the swabs, did not carry out the task assigned to him correctly. For Crisanti, the Abott antigen tests purchased by the Veneto Region in the summer of 2020, between the first and second waves, would have been unreliable, around 70%, while for Rigoli the correspondence "is superimposable in all the samples examined".
It was not only the Veneto region that bought the rapid tests (with a maxi order of 148 million euros) but also five other regions. Report would document through interceptions the progressive level of deterioration of relations between the president of Veneto Luca Zaia and Crisanti, starting from the paternity on the tests carried out on the entire population of Vo' Euganeo . In the interceptions, it is Crisanti's accusation in the Corriere, Zaia "speaks of me on the phone in an intimidating way" and is "the orchestrator of a campaign of defamation and discredit against me, despite the fact that I have worked for the Region and have taken positions decided precisely to safeguard the Region itself and above all the patients and citizens of the Veneto region».
Meanwhile, Veneto entrusts its reply to the words of Rigoli's lawyer, Giuseppe Pavan, and to a long note from the heads of regional health. For Pavan, his client "did his duty" and the microbiologist himself "only pursued the public good". For their part, the leaders of the Veneto health system defend the correctness of their decisions . «The strategy of the Veneto Region, aimed at pursuing the ultimate objective of preventing infections, hospitalizations and deaths as much as possible - it states - has always been based, from the early stages of the pandemic emergency, on technical-scientific indications of a international and national".
(Unioneonline/D)