Alberto Fernández prepares tourism restrictions and strong health checks to appease second wave of COVID-19

Alberto Fernández will sign a new Decree of Necessity and Emergency (DNU) as soon as possible that displays his new health strategy aimed at mitigating the devastating effects of the second wave of COVID-19. The president aims to discourage tourism, further reduce the frequency of foreign flights, more rigorously control Argentines who are in quarantine after returning to the country and minimize informal border crossings with Brazil and Bolivia. by establishing a greater presence of the Gendarmerie and Bolivia. Prefecture.

“The main objective is to discourage tourism and limit foreign flights to a minimum”, the president moved forward when he was consulted in Olivos.

Alberto Fernández expects a new batch of vaccine from Moscow for this week – the flight left at dawn – and hopes that 3 million doses of Sinopharm will arrive from China which still cannot be applied to groups at risk of over 60 years old. The chief of staff assures us that ANMAT will authorize this request before the end of March.

The head of state accelerated decision-making to deal with the second wave after reading a comprehensive report by the professor Sharon Peackock, Scientific adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This report, titled “COVID-19 Mutations, Past, Present and Future”, states the following:

“1. The virus multiplies more easily in older people because their immune systems are weakened. SARS-CoV-2’s RNA (“viral multiplication machine”) is defective, so when the virus multiplies it has many “replication errors” (mutations), with significantly greater possibilities than new variants (potentially the most contagious / fatal). The same would happen in other organisms with weakened immune systems, such as preexisting / disabled people. This happened in Kent, when on September 20 the British variant (B.117) appeared in an elderly person with a weak immune system. It follows that it is this population which must be privileged with the vaccine (in addition to the first line health personnel). Younger people who are infected would be much less likely to create a new variant (strain) because the immune system is naturally strong in them.

2. The variant that emerged in Manaus is characterized by the E484K mutation, which makes the virus more aggressive and more contagious. An important fact is that the current vaccines are not very effective against E484K (they are being modified to cover variants with this mutation, and Oxford-AstraZeneca would be modified in October). This variant also appeared spontaneously in South Africa, New York and Bristol. This suggests that the acquisition of the E484K mutation could be the natural evolution of the virus. Therefore, it could occur spontaneously anywhere, in the event of infections in the population at risk.

3. The concepts mentioned above (1 and 2) support the need to adapt immunization practices in Argentina: prioritizing immunization for the elderly, pre-existing people, people with disabilities, their caregivers and frontline health workers.

4. Fully aware of the need for vaccines in Argentina, and with the experience of the UK, I would like to suggest to schedule the vaccination with an interval of 3 months between the two doses. In the United Kingdom, the effectiveness of the 3-month interval between the two doses has been verified, since at 22 days after the first dose 76% of the immunity has been obtained, which was maintained during the 3 months.

5. At the end of December, when the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was approved here, Matt Hancock (Secretary of Health) indicated that it would be privileged to vaccinate as many as possible with 1 dose, starting with the over 80s. Thus, in 2 months, 24 million were vaccinated, the majority with 1 dose, and the cases were significantly reduced by more than 80% ”.

Sharon Peackock’s presentation is key to understanding the next health strategy the government will be implementing. It is analyzed to apply a single dose of Sputnik V, and This implies that Casa Rosada will ask the Russian Fund for Direct Investment to prioritize the shipment of component number 1, without neglecting the vaccinees who wait until next week to apply component 2 to close the immune cycle.

In this context, The Argentine Embassy in China has also demanded from the company Sinopharm the latest technical reports to be sent to ANMAT without delay.. The Sinopharm vaccine consists of two similar doses, but its use has not yet been approved in people over 60 years of age. If the information comes from Beijing and the ANMAT announces the technical authorization, the Chinese vaccine can be deployed as Dr Peackock explained to British Prime Minister Johnson.

Outside of instrumentation vaccines arriving in Buenos Aires, the president is alarmed at the damage the Manaus strain of COVID-19 can cause. Alberto Fernández read Peackock’s arguments in detail and, from there, ordered the design of a prevention and control mechanism with the axis of dealing with a probable second wave of the pandemic.

This prevention and control mechanism, which It will be implemented with a DNU, would establish the following provisions:

1. All Argentinian tourists returning to the country will spend their quarantine in hotels which will be at their expense. That is to say: if you go on vacation, you pay the quarantine, as is currently the case in Canada.

2. The returning tourist also bears the cost of the swab.

3. There will be a careful control of the tourist in quarantine thanks to the crossing of information and collaboration between the security forces of the Nation and the provinces.

4. The frequencies of flights abroad will be reduced to a minimum.

5. The national gendarmerie and provincial security forces will control the informal flow at Argentina’s borders with Bolivia and Brazil.

Santiago Cafiero, Chief of Staff, Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro, Minister of the Interior, Carla Vizzotti, and Vilma Ibarra, Legal and Technical Secretary, They are working against the clock to prepare the DNU which will establish a new government strategy in the face of the possible second wave of COVID-19.

If there are no last minute changes, Alberto Fernández will sign the DNU this Tuesday.

KEEP READING: