During the week that starts this Monday, all the country’s districts – including the Province of Buenos Aires and the City of Buenos Aires – will finish sending shifts to all registered adults who are still missing and may be complete the vaccination before next Sunday. At the latest, on Monday 2 or Tuesday 3 August, all Argentines who wanted to sign up will be vaccinated with one dose.
During the first days of the week there will also be many shifts for the second dose of Oxford / AstraZeneca and over the weekend the same will happen with those of Sinopharm who received the first dose three weeks ago. The big news for the next few days would be given on Tuesday, when the Federal Health Council (COFESA), led by Carla Vizzotti, gives free rein to the vaccination of adolescents, using the doses of Moderna donated by the United States government. Shifts would begin to arrive on Thursday and all adolescents with previous illnesses would be completed between Friday and Saturday.
Finally, dose 2 of Sputnik V is still delayed, although it is expected that in the next few days there will be a flight to Russia to search for that component. Completion at the Richmond Laboratory and the combination with Sinopharm and especially Oxford / AstraZeneca are the other alternatives being studied. In August the gap would be closed.
CABA and Province vaccinate all registered
Last night at the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health they were working on assigning shifts to the 900,000 registrants who are missing. The amazing fact is that all of them already had a turn and were absent for some reason: in general because they did not realize that the summons came to them. In theory, the 900,000 could be vaccinated in 6 days, but you have to think that the ministry led by Daniel Gollán and Nicolás Kreplak will also send shifts to apply second doses. 60,000 adolescents, already registered, enter the planning, which will also require two or three days.
In CABA the situation is quite similar. The calculation is that Wednesday and Thursday will be dedicated to applying Sinopharm vaccines to all Buenos Aires from 18 to 29 years who are registered. From there and there would be a few shifts that would be given during the weekend.
In this way, a milestone and great objective would be met: to have vaccinated with a first dose that provides strong protection to almost all of those enrolled. Only a few would remain who missed their respective citations.
Plans with doses 2
The parameters to complete the vaccination are the same in Buenos Aires territory and in Buenos Aires:
* 21 days after applying the first dose of Sinopharm
* 55 days after the first dose of Oxford / AstraZeneca
*For now, 90 days after the initial dose of Sputnik, although when there are enough vaccines it will be lowered to 60 days.
The Buenos Aires ministry led by Fernán Quirós will vaccinate Monday and Tuesday with the second dose of Oxford / AstraZeneca, while during the next weekend the shifts for the second dose of Sinopharm will arrive. In the Health portfolio they say that perhaps this will delay the initial dose for a few days, something that is not very understandable: they vaccinate those who already have protection before those who do not have any. The argument is that those who are missing, those who did not receive the first dose, are low risk.
In Buenos Aires territory, the priority is to complete the initial vaccination, with the obstacle that they are people who have already missed the first appointment. In reality, everything is focused on vaccinating not only those registered but also giving the first dose to those who did not register. For this reason, there is an effort in the train stations and the markets.
Shifts will be sent throughout the week to give dose 2 of Oxford / AstraZeneca and Sinopharm, but the concept is to combine the two doses, with the priority of looking for those who do not yet have any protection.
How the Sputnik gap will be closed
As is public and notorious, the gap that still exists in the vaccination program is in doses 2 of Sputnik V. There is a deficit of one million doses as of July 31, to which are added another three million who turn 90 days from dose 1 throughout August. With the most recent departure that came on an Aerolineas Argentinas plane it was possible to cover, approximately, those who received the first dose until last April 3. So it’s been three and a half months now. The ways to reverse this situation are the following:
*Let a plane arrive from Moscow with component 2. The rumor is that it would materialize in the next few days. Cecilia Nicolini’s email, leaked in the week that ended, exhibits the toughness with which the arrival of that vaccine and all the others must be fought. There were severe delays from AstraZeneca, while Sinopharm did not send a single vaccine for months. Pfizer has just been denounced in Chile for the delay in deliveries and it is still difficult for the two missing laboratories, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, to sign the contracts.
*That finished doses be authorized by the Richmond Laboratory. There are 1,050,000 and material is yet to arrive to make 1,700,000. It is estimated that the go-ahead could come from August 1. Richmond could deliver nearly three million doses 2 in August.
*That the combination of vaccines be validated. Studies are underway in CABA, Province of Buenos Aires and in the Ministry of Health of the Nation. This Saturday it was confirmed in the CABA work that combining Sputnik with AstraZeneca or Sinopharm does not have security problems, that is, it does not cause damage to health. In two weeks the amount of antibodies will be analyzed and that will be the decisive factor. In the Province of Buenos Aires and in the Nation it will take a few more days, but combinations of all vaccines are being studied.
The logic is that the Sputnik gap tends to close during the month of August, following one of those three paths.
Adolescent vaccination
On Tuesday, the meeting of all the Ministers of Health of the different provinces and CABA will take place in the Federal Council of Health (COFESA), a body headed by Carla Vizzotti. Everything indicates that the starting point will be given for the vaccination of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old, starting with those with comorbidities.
From the outset, registration could be done for those from 13 to 17 because the Civil Code requires parental authorization for 12-year-olds. This approval of the parents can be given using an app that will be available this Monday or Tuesday. Afterwards, one of the parents will have to sign in the vaccination.
In Buenos Aires, 60,000 adolescents were registered and the calculation is that if COFESA starts the vaccination, it could be completed in two days. The same opinion is in CABA. It means that if everything goes according to plan, Between Thursday, Friday and Saturday, all adolescents with previous illnesses could be vaccinated. Then it will advance with all the others.
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