“Pepe” Mujica criticized Lacalle Pou for his coronavirus vaccination: “We fell asleep”

“It is not easy.” This is how the former Uruguayan president said a few days ago, José “Pepe” Mujica, referring to the difficulty your country has in ensuring a stock of vaccines to immunize coronavirus its three million inhabitants. Now, the former president has redoubled the bet: “Uruguay will surely be the last country in South America to start vaccinating against the coronavirus”.

According to the former president and former senator, “some countries with a lot of resources have gone to buy left and right, even offering to pay more ” and he felt that Uruguay has a small market in an “unequal world” in which there is a lot of angst in immunization.

“Apparently some labs, among those in the running, are trying to take advantage of the situation; I have been told from overseas, for example, that one of the well-known companies that manufactures vaccines has asked in some countries for legal commitments, that no claims be made for secondary setbacks that might arise ”, he said on his radio show. South. The Argentine government crossed paths with the Pfizer lab on a similar issue, and for this reason negotiations were stalled.

Until, Uruguay has not launched a vaccination campaign and it is far behind Chile, which in recent days has vaccinated more than a million people (8.39% of the population), Brazil (which reached 2.07% of vaccinations) and Argentina, whose it has already vaccinated 1.27% of its population, according to the Our World Data site.

“We fell asleep, we delayed and the truth was we had possibilities, but we closed ourselves by a matter of prejudice or illusions …”, condemned the ex-president. And he considered that the forecasts of vaccination times published by some Uruguayan media are very ambitious. “I think how we’re doing, hard for the pig to whistle.” I hope I’m wrong, ”he says.

And he pointed against the direction of the president Luis Lacalle Pou: “It should have been approached as a national cause, with clear participation and representation from all, to make political nuances work together, but if today, because of the news in the newspapers about the government, it is said that the partners government officials, like the old Colorado Party, they feel out of balance with fundamental decisions and there are ministers who get information about certain things in the newspapers, which is to be expected as the government’s attitude towards the opposition, if he gives little to the partners ”.

This week Lacalle Pou will announce the acquisition of 250,000 doses of the vaccine from the Pfizer / BioNTech companies, according to local media.

Despite an increase in cases in recent weeks, Uruguay is one of the countries least affected by the pandemic. So far, it has accumulated 21,426 confirmed cases and 211 deaths.

THE NATION

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