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More politics than health: why they vaccinate 30-year-old teachers against Covid before people at higher risk

2021-03-09T09:55:34.684Z


In recent weeks there have been changes in the priority given to the different groups. It coincided with the beginning of the face-to-face classes and the union claim to start with the vaccinated education workers. There are no clear rules yet.


Ricardo Braginski

03/09/2021 6:00 AM

  • Clarín.com

  • Society

Updated 03/09/2021 6:00 AM

Argentina's vaccination plan continues to generate doubts, which go beyond the VIP vaccination scandal (or the doses that are administered "under the table").

The latest movements are also showing that those sectors that have the

greatest power of pressure or political play

are gaining places in the queue, albeit legally

.

The most notable case is that of teachers who now precede the more than 5 million Argentines who are less than 60 years old and have a pre-existing disease, but no union that represents them.

At the end of last year, when the national government defined priorities for receiving vaccines, it

set seven stages

.

This means that one should not be started until the previous one is finished.

These stages can still be seen on the official site of the national Ministry of Health and that of the City, which this Wednesday begins the vaccination of teachers without having started the one for those under 60 at risk.

Teachers and non-teachers are vaccinated at the Arturo Jauretche National University.

Photo Maxi Failla

These priorities indicate that after the health personnel (stage 1), there are adults over 70 (stage 2), then those over 60 (stage 3), then security forces personnel (stage 4).

It is followed by adults between the ages of 18 and 59 with risk factors (stage 5);

and

in the sixth stage, teachers and non-teachers

.

If this is the priority schedule, how is it that now a 30-year-old teacher can get vaccinated earlier than a 55-year-old person with diabetes or chronic cardiovascular, kidney or respiratory diseases? 

Many may say that it is correct that teachers, even young, are vaccinated before older people at risk because they

are leading courses with many students

and, if they are asymptomatic, they can spread the virus.

It is an understandable argument to consider, but nowhere is it explicit. 

From the Buenos Aires government they explain that this sudden change is due to the fact that the national government recently

modified the definition of strategic personnel

and that, in that movement,

teachers went from position 6 to position 4

(together with the security forces), relegating thus to patients at risk.

Now, although it is true that the national government announced two weeks ago -after the impact of the VIP Vaccination- that the definition of "strategic personnel" will be changed, there is no record that teachers and non-teachers have gone to priority 4. It was practically a change in fact. 


Teachers' vaccination in secondary school No. 2 Ensenada.

Snows

But what did happen in these two weeks, and there are records, is that

face-

to-

face classes started

throughout the country and that some teaching unions and especially Ctera, who resisted returning to the classroom without better epidemiological conditions or vaccines,

now do not know oppose the school calendar

.

The unknown remains about

what happened in the City last week

, where the Buenos Aires government at first seemed to be guided by the initial schedule.

Did you have to see the negotiation between the Minister of Health Carla Vizzotti and her counterpart from the City Fernán Quirós, who demanded more vaccines for the district?

Did the national Minister of Education, Nicolás Trotta, have a 20-minute zoom with the City's Ministers of Education and Health?

Did the joint ventures that were closed without conflict in the Nation and in the main jurisdictions have any incidence?

The meeting between Larreta, Trotta and Acuña, on February 8.

The conflict between Nation and City breaks out and then face-to-face classes start.

The truth is that this Wednesday begins the vaccination of teachers in the City with the Sinopharm vaccine.

Before, it had already started in other provinces, with different brands.

From the Buenos Aires government they say that, with the doses that arrived from China, the vaccination of health professionals will be completed in these days (stage 1) and there is

a remainder of 16,000 doses for teachers

(stage 4?).

Stages 2 and 3 cannot be met with this vaccine because, for now, it is not authorized for people over 60 years of age.

These days, the expectations generated among teachers that the national Ministry of Education has launched the "vaccination registry against COVID 19 for Staff of Educational Establishments" also "made noise".

It is an official site where education workers can

"sign up"

, in principle, for the vaccination plan.

They must fill out an extensive form leaving all their data.

Sinopharm vaccines arrive in Ezeiza.

They are the ones that will be applied to Buenos Aires teachers.

Photo: Rafael Mario Quinteros

But it turns out that since vaccination is finally handled by each of the jurisdictions, most of them - for example, Province and City -

do not take this information into account for reserving appointments

, but rather follow their own procedures.

How do you handle the expectation that a person generates to sign up for an official vaccination plan that later has no concrete support in reality?

All these questions remain in the air and the certainty that, at least for now, the Vaccination Plan has

more component of political negotiation than of health policy

.

Experts insist that the priority here, as in the rest of the world, must be

health personnel and the elderly

.

But then there must be

clear rules and a responsible management

of people's

expectations

, especially in the midst of a panorama of vaccine shortages.

Are we in time to change?

Source: clarin

All life articles on 2021-03-09

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