Uruguay to start COVID-19 vaccination campaign on March 1

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou announced on Monday that COVID-19 vaccination campaign in South American country to begin March 1.

His administration hopes that a few days before – between the night of February 25 and the early morning of February 26 – they will arrive 192,000 doses of the vaccine developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, while on March 8, 460,000 doses of Pfizer inoculants are expected to arrive.

During a press conference of the executive tower, Lacalle Pou explained that the latter will be used for health personnel, while the other will be used, in the first stage of the campaign, on firefighters and educational workers, security and assets of the National. Institute for Children and Adolescents (INAU). TAll recipients will be under the age of 60.

A similar decision was taken in Chile, whose authorities cited a lack of evidence on its effectiveness in older people in this age group. Before them, the staff who will administer the inoculants will be vaccinated. This process will take place from February 27 to 28.

The Pfizer vaccine, meanwhile, will be used to inoculate healthcare workers. The President said this was for “technical reasons”. In other words, greater efficiency (Pfizer is 95% against 50.3% of Sinovac). “Due to the task of health workers being on the front line, it was decided to vaccinate all professionals with doses of Pfizer.” And he said that by the end of the third month of the year, the country will have two million doses. The rest of the forecast is also around 1.5 million Sinovacs, which are scheduled for March 15..

In another order, Lacalle Pou indicated that “those who have had the disease and have an antibody test can enter Uruguay without quarantine“. At the general level, on February 19, the country extended the limit on the right to assembly by 30 days.

Regulations approved in Parliament, which already provided for the possible extension of one month and therefore did not require a new legislative procedure, limits the right of assembly, reflected in article 38 of the Constitution when there are “crowds which generate a notorious health risk”.

The new provision of the Executive established in its considerations that “although the figures projected by the scientific experts were not reached and that motivated the adoption of the restrictive measures referred, it is verified that the positivity index has not yet been reduced or maintained ”in the country.

Shortly before the president’s announcement, the country’s health unit reported 500 new positive cases of the disease, more than half of them in Montevideo. Since the start of the pandemic, the South American country has recorded 53,310 COVID-19 infections. 583 of them resulted in death, including 9 in the last 24 hours.

Learn more about this topic: