Argentina could already be vaccinated

The laboratory Pfizer offered Argentina 13.3 million doses of its vaccine last December, according to an official of the health zone who requested anonymity. A legal dispute the government did not know how to stop in Congress allowed what is considered one of the best vaccines to reach the country against Covid-19 which have been invented so far. The World Health Organization’s Covax fund, which stores high-level vaccines, has offered up to 25 million doses, but the Argentine government only contracted 2.5 million (that is, 10 percent), said the same official. One inevitable conclusion is that Argentina was on the verge of having 38 million doses of high-quality vaccine and missed the opportunity.. This opportunity would have meant that almost the entire population would now be vaccinated. Israel, which vaccinated almost exclusively with Pfizer, and the United States, which vaccinated with Moderna and Pfizer, is emerging from the pandemic, are not entering.

The return to negotiations with Pfizer, announced by the presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini, is in fact an overthrow of the government. Returning to negotiation does not mean, however, that legal issues will be easily resolved or that Pfizer is able to deliver vaccines to Argentina immediately. The text of a law will have to be changed and Pfizer has a waiting list until the end of this year.

The management of Ginés González García is questionable for reasons much more serious than those of the VIP vaccination. In fact, and since the ruling party likes to offer commissions of inquiry, the first independent investigation that should be launched is into how vaccines have been processed and why Argentina relies almost exclusively on vaccines that are not licensed. by the world’s leading pharmaceutical authorities. (European EMA and North American FDA). This fragility is occurring as the country suddenly enters the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. When you experience the biggest and deadliest pandemic in your history. Is it a political error that the Chamber of Deputies added a word to the agreement reached with Pfizer? This word, negligence, called into question the entire immunity agreement demanded by the most serious laboratories in the world.. Why has the government let go of an addition to the agreement with an international laboratory, the result of long negotiations? Mistake or premeditation? Or was it, perhaps, the political decision to leave the entire Argentine market to the Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca, with which it signed a contract for the supply of 22 million doses? The government paid 60 percent of the total, or about $ 60 million, when the deal was signed. AstraZeneca, which encountered several issues during investigation and later in distribution, has so far failed to meet any delivery commitments. In fact, he broke formal promises made to the European Commission, the EU’s highest authority; the Commission has taken legal action for non-compliance. AstraZeneca only adhered to the supply of vaccines to Britain.

Either way, Nicolini’s announcement happened just as heBrazilian pharmaceutical authority questioned efficacy and safety of Sputnik V vaccine. The announcement of the return of negotiations with Pfizer is true, according to the confirmation of several sources consulted. It is striking, however, that the Argentine announcement took place immediately after the Brazilian announcement.. The Brazilian drug control authority (Anvisa) said during a public hearing that it had not been able to enter all the factories where Sputnik V is manufactured. It entered three of the seven factories owned by the Sputnik V. Russian laboratory. In one, he discovered that there were security issues; couldn’t watch the other four. The Brazilian Annvisa is a technical and not a political institution.

The Russian government’s response that the objection to its vaccine was the result of Washington’s pressure on Brasilia is hardly credible. These are late reflections of the Cold War, which ended 30 years ago, although there is already growing tension from the Biden government against the Putin administration due to its constant violation of human rights. . Anyway, why would the Bolsonaro government come under pressure so easily when it signed a purchase agreement for 10 million doses of Sputnik V? Why, if Brazil is still going through a very critical health situation? Bolsonaro is disrespectful and unpredictable, but it is not political suicide. No one is saying the Sputnik V vaccine is bad, but they still insist on lack of transparency of information provided by the Russian government, typical of a regime that has built a political system between darkness and shadows. The European Medical Authority has been waiting for several months to send the papers containing the precise information on the vaccine from Moscow. They never come.

It is, however, the most serious vaccine to which Argentina has access. The other is the Chinese Sinopharm, which has not been cleared by the FDA or the EMA, and which independent Argentinian specialists say has little immunizing capacity. When it seemed that Argentina had already exhausted its capacity to explore mediocre products, alleged negotiations seemed to endow itself with a Cuban vaccine, which is only known to Cuba.. If there is anything that a society has the right to know, it is what is inoculated into its body. The power of the government to buy a vaccine under such conditions is morally very limited. Administration of Alberto Fernandez He was right to return to negotiating with Pfizer, and should also return to negotiate with the WHO’s Covax fund to explore the possibility of increasing his purchasing power, after having neglected it. Pfizer’s offer last year meant the government could purchase up to 13.3 million doses, although the latest figure is set by the Fernández administration. The same Covax system, which offered 25 million doses of the best vaccines, even though the modest amount bought by the Argentine government was a decision of the latter. There are too many questions and few answers to explain why the country is entering the worst conditions in the gloomy winter and pandemic.

The second wave turns out to be worse than the first. The contagion capacity of the new variants, especially the British and the Manaus, is much faster than that of the first tide. The only official version known daily is that of blaming all the evils on the government of the capital Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. The spokespersons for this anti-capitalist position are still officials who report to the Instituto Patria; It’s for Cristina Kirchner. The exception was the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, who denounced that patients wait in ambulances until 10 a.m. to find a bed. This is not true. The system is on the verge of collapse, but it has not yet collapsed. Rodríguez Larreta should send messages to Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández; political favors are appreciated. There is no better parchment to show the independent electorate than to fall victim to the fanatic extremes of Argentine politics.

Either way, the national government suffers one setback after another in the area of ​​justice. Yesterday the Supreme Court of Justice rejected a petition by Carlos zannini to be added within the framework of the province of Buenos Aires in the case of the appeal of the capital for the imposition of the closure of schools. Even if The Court did not say it in such clear words, the truth is that it demolished the concept that AMBA is a single political and administrative territory and that the President is its owner and lord.. It is a conflict between the federal government and the capital. There are no third parties in the running. When the Court declared itself competent to rule directly on this dispute, and when it has now dismissed the province of Buenos Aires as a party, it in fact admitted that the capital has the category of a province. He recognized his autonomy.

Another thing will be what you decide on the appeal filed by Rodríguez Larreta. It is likely that the Court, which has two constituents of 94 (Juan Carlos Maqueda and Horacio Rosatti) as members, who changed the Constitution and gave autonomy to the capital, explicitly recognize the autonomy of the capital. But it is also possible that it places the health crisis above all legal considerations and calls for a more intense and constructive dialogue between the national government and the authorities of the capital.. In other words: it is likely that you will demand that the policy solve the problems of the policy.

Alberto Fernández’s decision to close schools in the capital was the first he made without consulting Rodríguez Larreta. It also united the capital and the suburbs of Buenos Aires into a single administrative territory. They were Incomprehensible political and legal errors in a politician with long experience and a professor in the Faculty of Law. Nothing compares, however, with the missed opportunity to have the Argentines vaccinated in a timely manner. The country and history need to know who is to blame for such a loss.