The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, confirmed that as of this month the vaccination of the fourth dose of the vaccine against Covid-19 will begin: “We will start in January with the fourth dose, but always thinking of people who have immunodeficiency, who are older adults, personally people who work in Health. The President is going to be the announcement, because it is up to him, during the week, ”said the head of the Health portfolio at the Central Table of Channel 13.
This measure is an anticipation of one month with respect to the period that they had initially estimated from the Ministry of Health, which was in February of the present, considering the six months of distance between doses. Regarding the availability of vaccines to continue with the strategy of the health institution and with mass inoculation, Paris assured that “we have the vaccines for 2022 assured.”
What’s more, The decision is reported within the framework of the sharp increase in cases worldwide due to the emergence of the Omicron variant. The health authority assured that In January, an increase in cases of this variant is expected, which this week already exceeded 350 at the national level and that continues to rise throughout the world.
In that line, Paris indicated that “the Metropolitan Region is going to have an increase of 51% of the cases”, since “they are identifying more community cases”: “I think that if the entire Metropolitan Region continues to rise at the rate it is doing, we are probably going to have to take a measure, but that it involves the entire RM (: ..) to prevent this from increasing, but I ask people for responsibility ”.
“I believe that we are going to have an increase in cases, it is inevitable. There are experts like Tomás Pérez-Acle (…) who have said that we could have up to 6,000 cases, not reaching the 9,000 we had last year, but perhaps up to 6,000 cases ″, said the minister regarding the information from Pérez-Acle, who is a doctor in Biotechnology and a member of the data table of the Ministry of Sciences.
Although he stated that this increase is expected for this month, the minister assured that later there should be “a rapid decrease in cases: if the epidemiology of the other countries is repeated, probably until the end of January ”. To this, he added that cases “should be less serious”, since “in no country has the occupancy of beds increased” or “lethality in relation to Omicron.”
“However, at this moment we are in a different epidemiological situation, we have 92% of people vaccinated with two doses and 94% of people vaccinated with one dose and on Friday, we exceeded eleven million people with booster doses; And that was a very important milestone, ”said Paris at the Central Table regarding the Vaccination Plan carried out by the portfolio.
After the elections of November 21, where the victory of the President-elect, Gabriel Boric was defined, the authorities have confirmed that prior to the change of command to be held on March 11, all the necessary information will be transferred so that the next government continue with the health administration of the pandemic.
After the result, Minister Paris stated that the Health area should be maintained as “a State policy” and that the mass vaccination plan should continue: “We have said it many times and the President-elect agrees that Health is a State issue, therefore there should be continuity in some aspects, obviously they can put the accent on others, at least on the issue of the pandemic, “he said at Mesa Central.
“We are ready to cooperate fully with the incoming government and with the President-elect. We have not had a relationship with him or his team yet, but since March is eleven days, as of March 1 we will be working togetherHowever, any information, any data, that they need, we are going to give it to them ”, he assured.
Regarding the strategy that the next Ministry will maintain in the matter of the pandemic, Paris affirmed that it believes that Obviously, some restrictions must be maintained, but above all, maintain sanitary measures, hand washing, distancing, masks, in short. And on the other hand, continue with the vaccination, both strategies are complementary, so you can’t go with just one ”.
“If they need, in these meetings, that we explain to them how we work, if they want to continue as they do, If they want to change to another “governance” that I do not understand what they mean by that, obviously we are also ready to collaborate“, specific.
Paris stated that the delivery of information to be carried out “is very fluid”, since it is what is available on the Minsal website. Finally, He assured that according to what he believes, “the technical cadres” that support the institution could be maintained, “until an adequate transfer is completed.”
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