With the announcement of new spikes of contagion by the end of the year and the imminent arrival of some variants of the virus, more aggressive and contagious, the health authorities should act on schemes that allow us to advance more quickly with the national vaccination campaign.
At the end of the year, we have 40 percent of the population vaccinated with the complete scheme, a figure that hides enormous regional and age differences. Clearly, those who are not getting vaccinated are young people between 12 and 25 years old and it is to this group that all campaign efforts should be directed, considering, in addition, their high level of social interactions, combined with a low level of self-care . From a regional perspective, the focus should be on departments such as Vichada, Putumayo, Magdalena, La Guajira, Chocó, Cauca and Caquetá, where the percentages of the vaccinated population barely reach 30 percent.
With this panorama and the new risks, the Ministry of Health insists on ruling out the obligation of the vaccine, while not taking concrete actions in terms of the certificate requirement. Of course, contrary to what is observed in many countries, starting with France, where it began by requiring that all health personnel be vaccinated, those who did not do so could not attend their workplace or receive a salary. Then the certificate was established to enter public places such as cinemas, theaters, bars, restaurants and, finally, to board the metro or any transport system. The results are clear: in a single day about a million people were vaccinated and in the following week more than three million young people who had been reluctant.
Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom and many other countries have followed this path. Indonesia has gone much further by ordering cut off public services for those who resist vaccinations. And how about the Vatican itself, where the Pope ordered the dismissal of workers who did not get vaccinated. Biden has also cracked down on the United States by requiring employers to have all their workers vaccinated, the same for all federal employees and contractors and the 17 million people who work in the healthcare sector. Terms were set for the vaccination of all employees in the school sector and dismissals will be authorized for those who are reluctant.
I wonder what we are waiting for in Colombia to adopt similar practices, which have proven so effective. Nothing has been seen so far, but we could start by giving strength to an instrument such as the health certificate and regulating its requirement to enter restaurants, cinemas, shopping centers and also to use transport services such as taxis, buses, airplanes, among others. and thus give people the tranquility of a protected environment. This is the correct way to respect the freedom of each one to decide whether to vaccinate and not the freedom of each person to infect others.
As President Emmanuel Macron would say, those who do not want to be vaccinated stay at home. We can not lead any young person by the wicks to get vaccinated or take away the right to get sick or die, but that they do not endanger others. “Let them stay home, not us,” Macron said. I totally agree. Along these lines, I propose a campaign to return only to those places that implement this measure and require a vaccination certificate.
PD In the purpose of modifying the statutory guarantee law, the Government has already lost all shame. He endorsed the approval of a monkey in the ordinary budget law that, in flagrant violation of the National Constitution, modifies the guarantees law that, as its name indicates, is essential to give transparency to the electoral process.
The Government knows well that a statutory norm cannot be modified by an ordinary norm, nor be processed in commissions other than the First, but it is clear that nothing matters to them anymore and that they trust that the principle of legality will protect this nonsense and that by the time the Constitutional Court rules, the electoral process is over. But the Court could avoid this mockery by decreeing the provisional suspension of the measure from the filing of the claim.
GERMÁN VARGAS LLERAS
(Read all columns of Germán Vargas Lleras in TIME, here).
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