The Urgency of Vaccinations: A Warning for a Harsh Winter Ahead

50 days ago, on April 15 of this year, I published a column (“Winter: Covid, influenza and avian flu”) warning that, judging by the past situation in the northern hemisphere -where they called the conjunction of viruses “tridemia” syncytial, Covid and influenza- and the occupancy numbers of critical beds in Chile, a very harsh winter would come in terms of health. The award-winning former undersecretary Paula Daza had warned, already on that date, that the vaccination campaign was going very badly. And, in almost two months, nothing improved. As the IES researcher Javiera Bellolio recently highlighted (“A winter worse than the previous one”), the government goal was to have 85% of the population at risk vaccinated by June 1, and the figure reached a meager 60%. .

While the vaccination centers are empty and the hospital beds are full, the president of the Biobío Region Medical College began to circulate the idea that the winter holidays will have to be extended to reduce viral circulation. He thought that, as we know, he would have the immediate and unrestricted support of the College of Teachers, but it would further damage an educational system already in its last stages. That without mentioning the problem that this extension of vacations means for the parents and guardians of those schoolchildren. Let’s not say that the economy is at its best moment (we have had three months of consecutive falls in the Imacec, which measures productive activity in relation to the same month last year, and the employment figures continue to worsen).

On the other hand, the collapse of the health system as a result of the overload of hospitalizations, as we saw in the pandemic, is not a game. It means that the quality and opportunity of medical care decreases for everyone, especially affecting the most vulnerable. Diagnosis and treatment are delayed, resulting in deaths and irreversible damage that could have been prevented.

The field of health is one where risk calculations can never be just individual. What we do or don’t do will necessarily affect other people, either directly or indirectly. By taking preventive measures, among which vaccination stands out, we help reduce the circulation of diseases and maintain the response capacity of the health system. And that saves lives.

It is really surprising, then, that in a presidential public account that lasted almost three and a half hours, plus a national chain broadcast for those who were left with little pleasure, the President has not dedicated a minute to something so important. Even more so when it is assumed that they want to put the greatest emphasis on “care” and social solidarity. Wasn’t a call to get vaccinated for oneself and others the most obvious example of those supposed goals? Is there any case that fits better with the famous reflection of John Donne invoked by Boric, according to which “no man is an island”?

After all, it is no coincidence that the elective affinity between the individualistic extreme right, sometimes called alt-right, and the anti-vaccine movement. The fact of the biological continuity of life complicates the political philosophy of many “libertarians” who would each like to imagine a continent. And a President who leads a government coalition whose only slogan is “to put an end to neoliberalism” ruins the blackberries precisely on an issue where what they call “neoliberal logic” is effectively visible in the adversary.

How can this phenomenon be explained? I assume the government’s idea was to mention only things they thought they had done right, along with promising more goodness. The failure of the vaccination campaign was not good marketing. However, the topic will not go away because they do not mention it. On the contrary, many of the President’s promises depend, to some extent, on a winter where a health crisis does not end up further damaging education and the economy. In addition, there is room to improve the figures and call on citizens to get vaccinated. Unless, definitely, they have thrown away the sponge. And if a winter vaccination campaign is too big for them, what can be expected from the other grandiose promises?