They are reviewing two key policies today that could define the fate of the third wave of Covid

The third wave of the coronavirus begins to form, offshore. It will break on the shore, that’s for sure, experts and officials alike agree. The problem is, when is it going to break and how.

There are two fundamental variables for the wave to delay and arrive tame enough not to knock over the surfers who are on the board.

One is to delay entry for more travelers infected with the Delta variant, subject of debate at the moment for the limitation to 600 daily passengers and the quarantines in the hotels beyond the result of the PCR.

The other is vaccination. And, precisely, whether it is necessary to accelerate the application of the second doses to obtain a more robust coverage against the Delta and in general against the so-called worrying variants.

This Wednesday there could be news in this regard. This afternoon on National Vaccination Commission (CoNaIn), an advisory committee made up of recognized experts in epidemiology and vaccination which has always guided the decision concerning the vaccination policy in the country, even before the Covid.

Until now, the agenda of the day was not defined, but it is excluded that the specialists analyze two central themes: if the 12 weeks between the first and the second dose are maintained, and the possibility of combining the CanSino single-dose vaccine with the first Sputnik. This is how it can be understood from the messages that have come out in recent days from various officials and sectors of government.

12 weeks

In March, following CoNaIn’s recommendations, the Federal Health Council (called COFESA, made up of health ministers from the 24 jurisdictions) decided to postpone the second dose of all vaccines to a minimum period of 12 weeks from the application of the first.

At that time, the vaccine shortage it was a critical issue starting in the fall. None of the 22.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca contract had yet been received and the problem of the production of the second component of Sputnik was already in sight at this almost chronic stage.

With this measure, the government effectively increased the vaccine stock by saving time and expanding the population that could receive them. He did it by taking the scientific proof It had been analyzed in the United Kingdom that the effectiveness of AstraZeneca increased from 55% to 81% when the second dose was given at 12 weeks instead of six.

Without any results in this regard on Spoutnik or Sinopharm, the same indication, the notion of “presumption of effectiveness”, was applied by analogy. Later, studies conducted with the Russian vaccine in the province of Buenos Aires confirmed that the protection with a single dose is high.

But in the middle it appeared the threat of the Delta variant. And the evidence gathered in various parts of the world on how this strain that originally emerged in India is not only much more contagious, but could be less sensitive to the action of antibodies generated by the vaccine.

A recent study in Scotland found that out of 20,000 infected, 93% were infected with Delta: 70% were not vaccinated and the remaining 30% had received a single dose. Here, experts agree on the need to speed up vaccination with the second dosage to reduce the impact of the Delta variant.

The government last week released the preliminary results of a Health Ministry study based on 400,000 cases of people over the age of 60 which claims that with a dose of Sputnik V or AstraZeneca mortality decreases between 70% and 80%.

“It reports on the effectiveness of vaccines and approves the Argentinian strategy give priority to the application of the first dose to reach more of the population, ”the statement said.

But in this same text, slips the possibility of a readjustment in the plane to focus now on the second dose since she mentions that CoNaIn and COFESA made in March “the commitment to reassess the strategy after this period. On Wednesday June 30, a new CoNaIn meeting will be held to define the steps to follow in the current context”.

The city of Buenos Aires, in fact, has already started applying a second dose of AstraZeneca before the end of 12 weeks.

Combination of vaccines

With AstraZeneca, there is no harm in assigning vaccines to deliver the second dose. But with Sputnik the situation is not the same because the components are not interchangeable. This week some 400,000 people have three months from the first dose, as admitted Saturday the chief of staff, Santiago Cafiero.

Cafiero has also promised that these programs will be closed with the second batches of components of the Russian vaccine arriving these days, of which 350,000 doses are confirmed at the moment.

But beyond the addition of other batches of the second component in the next flights, the dose 1 / dose 2 shift continues to be deep. This is why the Chief of Staff also put on the table another question that CoNaIn could discuss this afternoon: the combination of Sputnik dose 1 with the Chinese single dose CanSino.

In this case, there is also no evidence of the possibility of a combination, but it has been used in Europe, for example AstraZeneca + Moderna or Pfizer. In the same way that the presumption of effectiveness was applied over 12 weeks, could be done on the combination.

“This is something that is being studied around the world and it is also under study in Argentina,” said Cafiero, who stressed that the vaccine combination should be approved by CoNaIn: “These are those who advance studies and evidence in these questions ”.

However, CoNaIn has no decision-making capacity: it is an advisory body, and as such provides recommendations which are then adopted by health authorities. If there is a change concerning the second dose (either in terms of or in combination of drugs) that determines it is the Ministry of Health with Cofesa, an organization which, coincidentally, had scheduled its next meeting for Thursday.

AS