Pablo Sigal
07/01/2021 11:48 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 07/01/2021 11:48 AM
Most of the Argentine stranded abroad are in Miami.
They went to get vaccinated against the
coronavirus
, to work or to go for a walk.
Of the 59 suspended Aerolineas Argentinas flights,
30
have that American city as the protagonist.
The question is why Miami, taking into account that the epidemiological situation there
does not seem to be
going through a critical moment.
In Miami, only
4 out of 100 tests
are positive today.
68 percent
of those over 18 years of age have already applied both doses of the vaccine. There are currently an average of
291 Covid cases
registered per day. They are so few that almost all of them would enter an Airbus A330, the same one that the stranded Argentines eagerly await to be enabled to
return to the country.
Of those 291 people, it is estimated that
20 percent
could have the dangerous Delta variant, according to the incidence records that it has at the national level: it would be 58 cases per day, in a city of
2.7 million residents
. That is, without counting the visitors that considerably increase the amount of population that circulates daily on the streets.
All of which indicates that the probability of getting the Indian variant, according to the most pessimistic estimate, is
1 in 45,550 every 24 hours
.
For a stay of one week the chances increase: 1 in 6,650.
This means that in a total of
25
A330
aircraft
taking off for Buenos Aires,
a single passenger
could be infected with the Delta variant, probabilistically speaking.
The question is whether this
"gain"
justifies a measure that has Argentines in Miami on edge and they don't know when they will finally be able to step on the soil of their own country.
To analyze the issue,
Clarín
consulted experts.
The wife and daughter of lawyer José Luis España, who are stranded in Miami.
Photo: Facebook
Arnaldo Casiró, head of Infectious Diseases at the Pirovano Hospital, said: “Nobody explains what the
epidemiological basis
for lowering flights is.
If you do not intensify the control, they arrive less, but they can still escape you.
In addition, when they arrive they should do PCR, not antigen ”.
Lautaro de Vedia, former president of the Argentine Society of Infectology, explained that although the objective of the measure is to
delay the arrival of the Delta variant
in Argentina,
"
The epidemiological situation of each place
must be taken into account when making these types of decisions that affect so many people."
And he added that the key "
is to test, monitor and carry out a genomic study
of the cases to find out which variant they correspond to, with compliance with the quarantine."
Eduardo López, head of the Department of Medicine at the Ricardo Gutiérrez Hospital and an infectious disease specialist advisor to the Government, pointed out that when analyzing the epidemiological situation of a city "we must not forget about
asymptomatic patients
."
Although he admitted that "the chance of getting infected in Miami
is low
."
He emphasized, above all, "that people fulfill the seven days of quarantine."
In the latter, perhaps, lies the explanation of an official measure
without nuances
: the inability of the State to be able to enforce mandatory isolation for returning people. It has already been said:
4 out of 10 do not respect it
. To counteract this deficit, the best option the government found was to restrict entry into the country. It is
the same logic of quarantine
: have everyone locked up instead of testing and isolating.
The height of this scenario was known in the last hours, when from the province of Buenos Aires they reported that they will only take to hotels those who leave the country as of July 1.
This is how
lax
the controls are when it is the State that must take charge, in contrast to the strictness of the measure that only allows
3 out of 10 people
who want to return to Argentina
to get on a plane
.
Conrado Estol is stranded in the United States.
The neurologist Conrado Estol, stranded in the United States, declared in the last hours that that country "is
one of the best in
the pandemic control
ranking
." He assured that the positivity of the daily tests is 1.9 percent nationwide. And he pointed out: "With the dissemination that we have, this - the flight trap -
would not make any difference
."
Casiró added: "They take measures late, badly and without scientific support,
punishing people
and creating a dangerous bottleneck, because the more these people go
around the airports
looking to travel, the more chances there are that the Delta will become infected."
And he closed: "If they had vaccinated properly, the Delta would arrive the same, but the impact would be totally different
with two doses
than with one or without vaccine."
This lack of scientific rigor in decision-making can lead to
conspiracy theories
.
One that circulated these days was that of the government's supposed “thirst for revenge” towards those upper-middle-class Argentines who decided to travel to Miami in the midst of a pandemic.
That this unspeakable thought has eventually passed through the head of some official - and is openly manifested on social networks by Kirchner supporters - does not allow us to affirm that this is the reason that drives such a delicate state policy.
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