Chile has already vaccinated nearly 3 million people against the coronavirus, 17% of its population

17 days after the start of the mass vaccination plan, The Ministry of Health of Chile delivered this Friday an assessment of the inoculation process to monitor the progress of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

Since the official vaccination process began in Chile on December 24, The country has shown that its ability to anticipate to achieve the necessary supply of vaccines and the managerial capacity to effectively expand immunization throughout its territory has made citizens feel that their government, despite countless mistakes, is always doing things right on the relevant issues, in this case, in the immunization process against COVID-19.

These are numbers so positive that even political technicians consider them responsible for the rise in popularity of President Sebastián Piñera in the latest polls, which raised him to 23% approval of his release.

According to information from the Department of Health Statistics and Information (DEIS), an entity belonging to the Ministry of Health (MINSAL) At 5:00 p.m. this Friday, 2,818,147 people had already been vaccinated against the disease, after this Friday 135,072 vaccinated were added.

In its balance the MINSAL delivered a very accurate report and it should be noted that Of more than 2.8 million doses administered, just over 1.7 million correspond to people over 65 years of age or more, while 58.1% of those vaccinated are women and 41.9% are men.

Within the target group, in addition to the age group, The process included personnel with essential functions, pharmacy personnel, security and law enforcement personnel and the armed forces, and workers who perform essential state functions.

Also added to this group are preschool and school education workers over the age of 60. In the meantime, according to the changes in the vaccination schedule announced this week by MINSAL, it will be next week for preschool and school educators between 59 and 40 years old; while people between 64 and 60 will be vaccinated from March.

Likewise, by March 1, the delivery of the second doses of Sinovac and the next doses of Pfizer was due to begin. The vaccination process developed by MINSAL has been developed gradually, depending on the doses arriving in Chile.

MINSAL reiterated this week the need to respect the vaccination schedule against Covid-19. This, following various events known in recent days, such as the vaccination of workers at free fairs in Florida or the early inoculation of Raquel Argandoña in Las Condes. Although they exclude that there is no more stock, they call for respect for the order of priority. Otherwise, from last Wednesday, a health check can be carried out against the municipalities or vaccinations that do not respect the risk segments.

It is because the controversies came from the mayors. The advisers were responsible for distributing vaccines to the population, through their assistance networks dependent on the municipal health system. The main criticism of their management is having vaccinated groups of people without risk in advance, which MINSAL says underscores the fact that the cure for COVID-19 is being used as part of a political campaign. “Most municipalities have kept the calendar completely. However, we have seen specific situations that raised our alert, ”said Public Health Under-Secretary Paula Daza.

The mayor of the metropolitan region, Felipe Guevara, was more critical. “There is a vaccine supplier which is the state, and inoculators which are primary health care, which are mainly dependent on municipalities. The employees of this campaign must make themselves available to the MINSAL strategy, which has a timetable. There may be an interest other than health, of all kinds, also political. Everything that has to come out of it affects the health strategy, ”he said.

From the world of health, the president of the medical faculty, Izkia Siches, He also joined the call. “It looks like it could provide a short-term advantage in being able to access these pressure groups. But I would tell mayors that, at least from a health standpoint, what you like most about a mayor is that I took as seriously as possible, Do not create privilege groups but follow the schedule. We have seen the example given to us by the Minister of Health, the President of the Republic himself who was vaccinated when his age group corresponded and I believe that we must look at what happened in the Peruvian phenomenon and what happened in Chile with these privileges ”, he maintained.

Finally, The union leader added that the action of mayors is not an effective political strategy. “I think it creates a lot more antibodies than electoral advantages, so in this same context, I would call and reiterate the local actors to follow the schedule to the letter,” he added.

Within the group of municipalities that have already vaccinated healthy people, according to the Minsal categorization, the one leading the list is La Florida, with 2866. It is followed by Punta Arenas with 2567 inoculated and behind Concepción, Talcahuano and Viña del Mar. In MRI, Florida runs alone, as Puente Alto is much further behind, but with 741.

Mayor Rodolfo Carter, of La Florida, in the metropolitan area, responded to MINSAL. “The first few days he was vaccinated there were firefighters, police officers who weren’t registered and that was updated over the days. We propose to MINSAL the exceptions that we have made. Vaccinate salon vendors, bus drivers, garbage collectors, cemetery staff, teachers. There was no way to search him because they didn’t have a record. We are the ones who have vaccinated the most, and even people from other municipalities have been vaccinated with us, ”he said.

Because of, Carter asked the government for more “caution and common sense”, make sure that “no one skips the line”. “Everything must be controlled, there must be no political abuse, nor favors between friends, so that Peru does not happen, in relation to the so-called ‘vaccine’.

According to forecasts by the government of Chile, in the first quarter of 2021, it is expected to vaccinate around 5 million people, while by the middle of the year it is expected to reach 80% of the population, or about 15 million people.

KEEP READING

How Chile achieved the most massive and effective vaccination in Latin America