Cagliari ended an 11-match run without a Serie A win on Thursday after coming from behind to beat Sampdoria 2-1, while Inter Milan's match at Bologna became the year's first victim of a wave of coronavirus cases.

Second-half strikes from Alessandro Deiola and Leonardo Pavoletti ended a miserable run for the Sardinian side which had stretched back to mid-October after Manolo Gabbiadini had scored in his sixth straight match to give hosts Samp an 18th-minute lead.

Walter Mazzarri's side stay in the bottom three after their second win of the season but are now three points behind Spezia, who are just outside the relegation zone and host Verona later on Thursday.

Samp, who lost Antonio Candreva to a late red card, sit 15th on 20 points, seven points from the drop zone.

The strange spectacle of a team turning up for a match they knew would not take place returned to Serie A after local health authorities (Azienda Sanitaria Locale, or ASL) barred Bologna from hosting Inter.

Three more matches will suffer the same fate on Thursday following decisions from ASLs: Atalanta v Torino, Salernitana v Venezia and Fiorentina v Udinese.

As Inter's players performed a warm-up at the Stadio Dall'Ara, the club's sporting director Giuseppe Marotta spoke to DAZN about the situation, bemoaning a "lack of clarity" in decision making.

"We need to limit the role of the ASLs because they make their decisions autonomously, creating a huge amount of confusion," he said.

"Bologna had to just accept the decision, as they were ready to play and it was the Bologna ASL who decided (on the fate of the match). We're lacking a general guideline between sport and the Health Ministry.

"When we allow the ASLs to decide autonomously we end up with different decisions from one region to the next... Verona are going to play at Spezia despite having more Covid cases (10 among players and coaching staff) compared to Bologna and Inter."

A new Serie A protocol was then released which insisted on teams playing matches as long as they had 13 players (including one goalkeeper) available who were born before December 31 2003, otherwise they would be handed a 3-0 defeat and be docked a point.

Earlier on Thursday, Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious disease department of Genoa's San Martino hospital, said that players who have been vaccinated and are asymptomatic should be allowed to play.

"Lots of players have been vaccinated in Italy, I think it's around 80 percent," said Bassetti to the Gazzetta Dello Sport.

"That's a sufficient number of players to change the rules: those who have had two or three vaccine doses, if asymptomatic, should be free to play and do their jobs."