Anti-vaxxer’s sad act before Covid death in Italy

Doctors say a committed anti-vaxxer, who was taken to hospital with Covid, performed a sad act before succumbing to the disease.

The man, named as Luigi Cossellu by local media and who was admitted on January 16.

An Italian anti-vaxxer who tore off his oxygen mask and insisted he did not have the disease while being treated at a hospital, has died of Covid-19.

Luigi Cossellu, was admitted on January 16 – with local media reporting that he denied the existence of Covid-19 and had refused to get the jab.

The 28-year-old was reported to have been in a serious condition upon his arrival at the Santa Maria Goretti Hospital in Latina, south of Rome.

Medics there diagnosed him with acute respiratory failure due to coronavirus, and transferred him to an intensive care ward on his second day at the facility.

However, Mr Cossellu refused treatment and even ripped off his oxygen mask according to local media.

Italy24news reports that doctors were able to persuade the man to put the mask back on.

But it was too late. His condition deteriorated, and he died from the disease on his fifth day in hospital.

Mr Cossellu’s 55-year-old father – who is also an anti-vaxxer – is also in hospital currently in a serious condition on a ventilator, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

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Luigi Cossellu died five days after being admitted to hospital with the virus.

Mr Cossellu was from nearby Terracina and was engaged, according to his Facebook page.

Alessio D’Amato, the councillor for health of the Lazio Region, urged young people to get vaccinated, pointing to the 28-year-old’s death.

“Covid also hits young people hard. vaccination is important,” he told Italy24news.

The outlet also reported that a 28-year-old pregnant anti-vaxxer died overnight between Thursday and Friday in Rome.

She was reportedly in her 31st week of pregnancy, but was not vaccinated.

The news outlet reported that she had symptoms for 10 days, and was having a hard time breathing, and within a week her condition had worsened, forcing doctors to perform a caesarean section to deliver the baby.

But despite their frantic efforts, they were unable to save the woman.

Italy has one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe with 76.6 per cent of the population fully-jabbed.

Mr Cossellu was from nearby Terracina and was engaged.

However, Italian anti-vaxxers have been making a lot of noise, particularly since the government introduced a vaccination mandate for over-50s that will come into power from February 1.

Last month, a popular Italian anti-vaxxer who gained a cult following after his regular phone-ins to a popular radio show was killed by Covid-19.

Maurizio Buratti, 61, known to his fans as Mauro from Mantua, had boasted of being a “plague spreader” after deliberately going to a Carrefour supermarket without a mask while feeling ill and having a temperature, just days before his hospitalisation.

The incoming vaccine mandate in Italy requires anyone over the age of 50 to be vaccinated from February 1. The unvaccinated risk paying a large fine or losing their jobs.

Under the mandate, the only alternative to getting the vaccine is to recover from Covid-19.

This has also prompted people to host “infection” parties, where people would pay to be in close proximity to those infected with Covid-19, in the hope they would catch the virus, go on to recover, and thus become eligible for the exception.

Italy remains one of the worst-affected European nations by Covid. Picture: Miguel Medina / AFP

Italy appears to have reached a peak in the number of Omicron infections, with cases of the highly contagious variant now on the decline, the country’s Covid Emergency chief said on Monday.

“There is good news: it seems that we have reached the plateau of the curve for what concerns Omicron and it is going downhill,” commissioner Francesco Paolo Figliuolo told journalists in Milan.

Italy was the first European nation to be hit hard by the pandemic in early 2020 and remains one of the worst affected, with the EU’s highest reported death toll, with nearly 144,000 victims.