The government decided that as of December 1, the anticovid card will have to certify that a person completed their scheme.
November 30 and December 1 will mark a turning point in social life that Colombians have tried to resume in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has again left more than 2,000 daily infections in recent weeks.
Recently, the National Government made several decisions that seek to accelerate the National Vaccination Plan (PNV) and immunize the 12.4 million people who are missing to reach the goal set by the Ministry of Health of having 35 million people fully vaccinated by the end of the year.
As of next December 30, it is contemplated that the requirement of the anticovid vaccination card to enter places and public leisure events will be extended to children over 12 years of age. This is stated in Decree 1408 of the Ministry of the Interior. Currently, the restriction only applies to those of legal age.
Only 24 hours later, on December 1, a new measure will begin to apply for those over 18 years of age. President Iván Duque announced that it will no longer be enough for the anticovid vaccination card to certify that a citizen has the first dose, but that it will have to prove the complete scheme. “We encourage Colombians to get vaccinated and protect those vaccinated,” said Duque.
To comply with the measure, a person will have to count on a single dose of Janssen or two doses of the other vaccines.
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These guidelines of the National Government will imply that, in practice, social life will be subject to the anticovid vaccination card. In addition, they will encourage those who have only applied the first dose to complete their scheme. If they only have one dose, they won’t be able to get into bars, restaurants, cinemas, fairs, museums, amusement parks, concerts, and other massive events.
“This implies, gentlemen, that we do not want a Christmas with outbreak problems, we do not want a bitter January,” said Health Minister Fernando Ruiz during the most recent Unified Command Post.
The risk is latent and poses difficult challenges for the Ministry of Health. Although that entity had proposed to reach 70% of the population vaccinated with at least one anticovid dose by November 15, until this November 19 it reached 65.3% in this indicator (see infographic).
The goal by the end of the year is for 70% to have their complete vaccination schedule, but so far only 45.6% have been fully vaccinated.
Changes to booster doses
The Ministry of Health also decided that those over 50 can inject their anticovid booster dose four months after completing their scheme. Until now, the measure only covered people who had applied their second dose six months in advance.
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This guideline was given along with a sweep made by the Government at the national level to verify how many anticovid doses could be expired (see box). At the end of the afternoon of this November 19, the Vice Minister of Health Luis Alexander Moscoso met with the secretaries of health and the covid managers of the territorial entities to verify this issue.
During the meeting, he expressed the need to make an inventory of the anticovid vaccines that were at risk of expiring and asked them to apply them to those over 50 years of age.
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