The three objectives that mark the Government’s roadmap to guarantee vaccination during the electoral campaign

The PASO will be carried out on Sunday September 12. At that time, the government expects to show a significant change in the lives of Argentines due to the volume that the vaccination plan has been able to acquire in the past two months. The moment was not prepared. It would be impossible. But the progress of the vaccination plan corresponds to the date of the detainees.

The Ministry of Health, which directs Carla Vizzotti has a clear roadmap on vaccination timelines and strategies that will be followed in the short term. Also the inconvenience to come in the provision of the second dose of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, which led presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini to send an email to the Russian Investment Fund in an attempt to pressure them to comply with the contract.

What is of most concern to the government is that there could be a massive outbreak of the Delta strain in Argentina these days. According to a report that Vizzotti recently presented to President Alberto Fernández in Paraguay, there is already community circulation of the new variant and the virus would soon enter the country and start circulating at full speed.

In the health portfolio, they expect a possible relapse of contagions consequence of the diversification of the new strain, but they want it to arrive with more force only at the end of August. If this happened, the first goal would be achieved: delay mass community traffic until the end of winter.

However, this projection may drop quickly if the infections already recorded in Salta, Córdoba and the city of Buenos Aires start to multiply at full speed.

Until now, specific cases of travelers arriving from abroad and of close contacts of these people were known. The red flag sounded on Friday when the city government of Buenos Aires announced it was investigating whether two cases of the Delta strain were produced by community circulation of this variant.

If confirmed, it would be the start of a new stage of the pandemic in the country. In this case, the immediate goal will be to exercise a containment network that delays the increase in infections. Track, test and isolate. No one knows how long the cases could explode.

The authorities of the Ministry of Health hope that this increase in infections will generate tensions in the health system, but they warn that the situation will be completely different from that experienced in recent months. The reason is linked to the number of vaccinated. Argentina has most of its population over the age of 18 immunized with at least one dose.

Mass vaccination leads to a reduction in infections and those who end up having them do not end up in an extremely serious situation. In the national government, they understand that what is going on right now in the country is a distinct stage of the pandemic. There is no longer any risk of health collapse.

There may be a number of people infected, but fewer people should enter the hospital since they are vaccinated. An alarm scenario but no disaster.

One of the distinctions of the Delta strain is that it is very contagious. According to the data they have, many travelers carrying the virus have infected everyone with whom they shared the home. Last Thursday he was exposed to a specific case in Cordoba province, where a young man from Lima, Peru was confirmed to have infected 13 members of his family.

In the very short term, the health objective can be broken down into three fronts. The first is to delay mass community circulation as long as possible, the second is to advance the vaccination of approximately 900,000 adolescents with co-morbidities, aged 12 to 17, by applying the Moderna vaccine, the only one with country has is allowed for minors.

The third objective facing the Government is to complete the second doses of two groups at risk: the elderly and those between the ages of 18 and 60 who have co-morbidities. Each province has a different pace and, in parallel, advances with the second doses of the rest of the population. In short, they are betting on building an antibody wall in most of society and that the Delta strain does not generate a riot like the Manaus did two months ago.

According to data released by the Ministry of Health, 90.1% of people over 60 have a dose. During this time, 62.7% of those over 70 have completed their program; 51.2% of people aged 60 or over and 38.6% of people aged 50 and over. 20% of the population aged 18 or over already have both doses.

The government is betting that 90% of people over 60 have the full vaccination schedule before the end of August. The health barrier in the groups at risk is decisive to avoid the growth of the contagion rate and, above all, of the lethality. Although health authorities estimate that with the percentage of vaccinated, the number of deaths will drop sharply.

In the portfolio led by Vizzotti, they argue that all vaccines acquired by Argentina serve to counteract the effects of the Delta variant, but it is necessary to have both doses for the protection to be more effective.

All incoming Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccine doses will now be for second doses. That is, to complete the vaccination schedules. This is the direction that the vaccination plan will take in August. In Argentina, there are approximately 32,000,000 people over the age of 18. Of this total, 25,000,000 were vaccinated with a single dose: 75.2%.

The big problem with Alberto Fernández’s administration today is the lack of second doses of Sputnik V. There are three areas the government is working on to counter this lack of doses. The steps to speed up the shipment from Russia, the advancement of production in the Argentinian laboratory in Richmond and the study to combine vaccines.

Currently, there are 1,200,000 doses, produced by Richmond, which are stored in a logistics center and must be approved by the Gamaleya Institute. Final authorization is missing. Richmond could generate a million more in the next four weeks but delivery is still tied to Russian clearance. For the moment, the volume of these second missing doses can only be given by the Argentinian laboratory.

No second dose has arrived from Russia and Among those who expired within three months and those who will expire in August, there are a total of nearly 4,000,000 people.. This is one of Casa Rosada’s biggest concerns these days.

The parallel path in trying to fill the pothole created by Russia’s delay in delivering second doses is the combination of vaccines. In the government, they assure that in a very short time the approval of the Ministry of Health would come out to be able to combine doses from different laboratories. This would be the solution to the supply problems.

The country is studying the combination of the first dose of Sputnik V and the AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Moderna vaccines as the second dose. In this sense, yesterday the Russian Direct Investment Fund announced that, according to preliminary results, The combination of Sputnik V and AstraZeneca vaccines performed in Azerbaijan was safe for infections and did not produce side effects.

In addition, there are studies by researchers at the University of Saarland (Germany) who have obtained good results on the effectiveness of the combination between AstraZeneca and Pfizer, a vaccine that will soon arrive in Argentina. Trials to study the interchangeability of vaccines are advancing in the world and in the country, the possibility of realizing this option is very close.

In the roadmap drawn up by the Ministry of Health, September and October appear as the months of research and conviction of the unvaccinated. This audience is mostly under 30 years old.

To do this, they assess the establishment of health posts in universities, clubs, parks and different neighborhoods. Make the campaign more visible to an age group that seems to be watching the vaccination process sideways. Cansino’s vaccine could be used for this audience. This is a single dose, so people don’t have to go to an immunization center to complete their schedule. It is a possible strategy.

With this action plan, added to the progress of registrations and the ongoing vaccination process, could reach 90% of the elderly vaccinated at the beginning of the last trimester. Alberto Fernández is aware of all the screenings. This is why, at the start of the electoral campaign, he assured: “After September, when we have finished vaccinating everyone, Let’s get ready to enjoy a beautiful spring and a beautiful summer in Argentina ”.

The government is clear that the volume of the vaccination plan and the health management of what appears to be the final stage of the pandemic will have an impact on the elections. This involves the political doll to prevent possible restrictions in the face of an epidemic caused by the Delta strain from exacerbating the unease that society has been dragging since the final months of the pandemic.

In addition, Health management is decisive for the revival of the Government in a post-pandemic phase. At Casa Rosada, they assume that the Frente de Todos government will enter a new phase when the level of immunization exceeds current restrictions and the lives of Argentines are a little more normal. Until then, they will have to swing between the leadership’s plebiscite campaign at the polls and the new threat of the Delta strain.

KEEP READING: