An ‘extraordinary’ campaign is credited for Palazzo Adriano’s stellar uptake – even if topping 100% is a statistical quirk

While European governments weigh up new mandates and measures to boost the uptake of Covid jabs there is on the slopes of Sicily’s Monte delle Rose a village with a vaccination rate that defies mathematics: 104%.

The figure is in part a statistical quirk – vaccine rates are calculated by Italian health authorities on a town or village’s official population and can in theory rise above 100% if enough non-residents are jabbed there – but Palazzo Adriano, where the Oscar-winning movie Cinema Paradiso was filmed, is by any standards a well-vaccinated community. A good portion of the population has already taken or booked a third dose and since vaccines were first available it utilised its close-knit relations to protect its people.

Rule that pass must be presented to access workplaces forces hand of many vaccine-hesitant Italians

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At the vaccination hub outside Termini train station in Rome, a steady flow of people have been turning up for their first Covid vaccine dose in recent days. The mood is begrudging. “If I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t,” said Rosanna Barbuto, a supermarket worker. Catalin, 41, who works in a factory, said: “I’m taking it because I need to work.”

They are among the vaccine-hesitant who caved in after Italy made it mandatory for all workers to present a so-called green pass to access their workplaces. The rules are the strictest in Europe and require workers to present proof of vaccination, immunity or of a negative test taken within the previous 48 hours. Some see Italy’s cautious approach as the key to its current low infection rate.