Until yesterday, Medellín had more than 40,000 vaccines. But confusion still prevails.
The third was the charm for Don Manuel Molina, who after losing the trip to Mayorca and the Yesid Santos Coliseum found, after two weeks of searching, his third dose in Unicentro, yes, after waiting there for almost 8 hours.
Similar testimonies have been made frequent since the reinforcement stage of the vaccination plan began. Like Don Manuel, people on the streets and users on social networks report logistical failures and misinformation that contrast with the insistent message of local and national authorities to go, to whom it corresponds, to the vaccination posts to strengthen their protection against the covid.
So, are there or are there no vaccines for the booster stage? The answer is yes. According to the Medellín Health Secretariat, yesterday at 9:00 am the city had 40,161 doses.
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Between Wednesday and Thursday, 2,961 reinforcements were applied in Medellín and since this phase began, 123,491 people have come to apply it. This averages just over 4,000 daily doses about a month after the start of this phase. So even tripling the average over the weekend, there would be enough vaccines to serve a high flow of people. In Antioquia, for its part, according to the Health Section, all municipalities have an inventory of biologicals for this stage.
The problems are not as much of availability as you might think. The departmental health secretary, Lina Bustamante, acknowledged that one of the difficulties is that the vaccination posts and / or their capacity decreased, largely due to the delay in payments that correspond to the State for EPS and IPS who have supported vaccination.
Since last week, the Government began a crusade with the municipalities to restore the supply and extend days.
To this is added another problem and it is the lack of pedagogy, as pointed out by the epidemiologist of the CES University, Yessica Giraldo, to effectively explain to the population the guarantees offered by heterologous vaccination, as it is a subject that raises many concerns among people. For this reason, he points out, it is common to hear about people who return from the vaccination points when they cannot find the same biological agent with which they completed their scheme, despite having other options for reinforcement.
Another error, in the opinion of the researcher, is the way in which the leaders have “promoted” the goals of herd immunity. In an effort to celebrate the proximity of these thresholds, Giraldo explains, they have weighed the population figure with the first dose, which has sent a confusing message to the public. “If people hear about immunity with first doses they question, why a third? And it is a valid question that shows that the message has lacked coherence, “he says.
Health experts insist that dismissing the importance of the third dose could put the country on the ropes starting in January. In Medellín alone, more than a million people are susceptible to reinforcing their scheme between December and January as current evidence indicates that in that period the protection acquired could be diminished. This leaves the population exposed to outbreaks, to the uncertainty of new variants and, the most vulnerable groups, to risks of serious symptoms and death.
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