Uruguay continues its rapid vaccination campaign: it has already applied more than 50 doses per 100 inhabitants

Amid the advance of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, Uruguay continues to advance its vaccination campaign. This Thursday, the South American country crossed another symbolic mark, applying more than 50 doses per 100 inhabitants.

According to the Uruguayan newspaper The observer, which cited data from the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) immunization monitor, the country applied a total of 1,766,744 inoculaciones, between the first and the second dose. This number means that the rate per 100 Uruguayans is 50.39%.

Of the total number vaccinated so far in the South American country, 1,154,481 have received only the first dose (just over 33% of the population) and 612,263 (around 17%) have already received fully vaccinated.

According to the specialist site Our World in Data, the country ranks second in the world for the percentage of the population vaccinated in the past seven days, with a daily average of 1.08%. Only Hungary was in the lead, with 1.21%.

The goal of the government of President Luis Lacalle Pou is to reach 2,800,000 people vaccinated, which represents 70% of the Uruguayan population. Experts believe this is the percentage needed to achieve the so-called herd immunity, necessary to stop the spread of the virus.

In the meantime, and despite the good pace of the vaccination campaign, the Honorary Scientific Advisory Group (GACH), which advises the Uruguayan executive in its decision-making on COVID-19, assured that the country could resume a trend of exponential growth in some cases, something of “extreme gravity” if one takes into account the fact that the health system “has no more reserves”.

This is explained in the first of two reports presented this week, written by the Models and Data group.

“The epidemic in Uruguay is in a very serious situation: all the WHO (World Health Organization) indicators are at their highest level (TC4), and the response of the health system is in the limited category, as evidenced in particular by the situation of CCIs (intensive treatment centers) ”, underlines the text.

In addition, he points out that the figures of deaths in April with an average of 60 daily cases are “very important”, since they represent more than 50% of the historical average mortality in Uruguay, which is between 90 and 100 deaths per day. On this basis, he stresses that the need for a significant and rapid reduction in cases is “clear”.

On the other hand, the report indicates that the last few weeks first showed a plateau and then a slight decrease in incidence. However, he assures that the indicators of mobility, which had been reduced, rebounded after the week of tourism (or Easter) “to values ​​even lower than in March but which do not encourage, on their own, the necessary reduction of infections “.

“If a plateau occurs in these values, we must consider a number of deaths in May, which is not much lower than that of April,” he said.

In addition, he adds: “The current trend is increasing the threatens to (…) resume the exponential trend of cases. This would lead to a situation of extreme gravity, given that the health system has no more reserves ”.

Contrary to this, GACH says what is “of course” in favor is the effect of vaccination, “which is already reaching large swathes of the population and is continuing at a very good pace”.

“For now, we can say that The short-term course is very uncertain, but vaccination alone is not expected to significantly reduce cases over the next month. Anyway, and depending on the characteristics of each vaccine, there should be a decrease in severe cases before loss of circulation, a situation that we will continue to monitor, ”he concludes.

Right now in the South American country there are 28,123 people with the disease, 535 in intensive care. In addition, since the health emergency was declared on March 13, 2020, 193027 cases of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and 2497 deaths have been confirmed.

With information from EFE

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