Nicolás Maduro dictatorship prioritizes Chavista supporters for coronavirus vaccination in Venezuela

This weekend, the coronavirus vaccination plan was implemented in Venezuela. However, priority was not given by those at risk or by all older people. As the Chavist dictatorship itself recognized, the priority of these hours belongs to whoever has the “national card”.

“We give priority to the personnel who received the message via the national card. We’re not going to say we won’t take care of the one who got the message, we’re going to take care of them as well. That’s why we are going to make this list of these people… You are going to organize yourself, we are going to note that they are on the party list ”explains an official in front of the Alba Caracas hotel, one of the vaccination centers in the Venezuelan capital.

Dozens of Venezuelans arrived at the hotel around 5 a.m., and after several hours they were still waiting their turn. While those who had the “national card”, managed to get vaccinated without having to queue.

“What we are going through here is not fair… A right that we all have to the vaccine, mainly the elderly who are inside and who have not yet been able to access it. Not everything is happening just because we need the vaccine; we are human beings, we are Venezuelans, and They ask for the national card to enter and be vaccinated. We have the right to the vaccine, we demand our vaccine, as Venezuelans, we do not have to depend on a card so that they can give us the vaccine ”, denounced a citizen, in dialogue with the NTN channel 24.

Other people, on the other hand, after long hours of waiting, were informed that they would be referred to other vaccination centers.

The Chavist authorities launched the vaccination on Saturday, in what they called a new phase of “massive” vaccination of the population, with the authorization of 27 centers in 22 territorial entities out of the 24 in the country. The vaccines applied are Russian Sputnik V and Chinese Sinopharm.

“Today we are starting the mass vaccination plan in phase II of the comprehensive vaccination plan. It is important to point out that at the moment, 27 centers across the country are calling on people through the Patria system to get vaccinated, ”said the Deputy Minister of Supply and Technology of the Ministry of Health, Gerardo Briceño, in an interview with the state channel VTV.

The head of Chavista acknowledged that for this, citizens must enroll in the Patria system, the system that the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro uses to grant social assistance and which is questioned by the opposition arguing that it is a “control” mechanism of society.

This Sunday the Venezuelan Health Alliance sent a direct message to the regime’s health minister, Carlos Alvarado, to whom he reminded that the vaccination post that operates in the Alba Caracas hotel “does not appear on the list of vaccination posts published by the MPPS (Ministry of People’s Power for Health of Venezuela)”: “There, the people invited to be vaccinated do not meet the criteria you have indicated.”

This vaccination plan began after weeks of complaints about the slow process.

According to national and international organizations, Venezuela remains in the last positions in Latin America in terms of vaccination against the coronavirus.

Such is the lack of transparency that the exact number of vaccines arrived is unknown, since the information provided by the Chavist authorities is contradictory.

A few days ago, Maduro announced the arrival in the country of 1,300,000 vaccines from China. However, the regime did not show images of the arrival of this shipment, as it did with others, and did not provide any further information about it.

Juan Guaidó said that “it is a lie” that 1,300,000 COVID-19 vaccines have arrived: “Is a lie. 30 or 40,000 vaccines arrive and … photo on the plane, photo of landing, photo back in Caracas, they show the box … 1,300,000 vaccines have arrived and there is no has no photo? It is obvious that this is a big lie on the part of the dictatorship ”.

Before the announcement of this new batch of doses, Maduro had given details of the receipt of 930,000 vaccines from Russia and China, while Minister Alvarado brought this figure to 1,480,000, without knowing the dates of arrival over half a million that makes a difference or whatever. The data.

In this context, dozens of Venezuelans demonstrated last Friday in Caracas to demand, under the slogan of “Vaccines for all”, mass vaccination of the population, as part of a planned, transparent and public system.

The demonstration was led by the opposition front of women “Venezuela Libre” and members of the College of Nurses of the Venezuelan capital who denounced the lack of clarity on the amount of vaccines that reached the country and the number of vaccinated people. Guaidó also participated in the mobilization.

The Venezuelan Medical Federation (FMV), for its part, denied that Maduro’s regime vaccinated 90% of frontline healthcare workers against the coronavirus, as Minister Alvarado said last weekend.

According to Douglas Leon Natera, president of the FMV, who assured that the vaccines arrived in the country are sufficient to cover “the needs” of 0.8% of the Venezuelan population, only one million units are necessary for the health personnel.

“One million doses are needed for health personnel in general and between 40 and 50 million requests to vaccinate the Venezuelan population,” warned the president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

He also said that “at most” some 200,000 doses were intended for the health sector and part of the population, and the rest, for Chavist politicians.

“The vaccines that have arrived have been diverted by the government to immunize Chavist ministers, MPs and politicians, and they have left healthcare workers, who are on the front lines in the fight against covid-19, helpless.”, denounced the Venezuelan doctor.

KEEP READING: