Irene Hartmann
07/22/2021 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 07/22/2021 6:01 AM
Authorities agree that the Delta variant will be installed soon.
Its unpredictable impact depends on the extent of the
two-dose
Covid vaccination
.
How many people in the risk groups need to be immunized (and how many days will it take to do it) to be more or less calm in front of Delta?
"
Quiet
" means that - without aspiring to herd immunity - those who have a higher risk of hospitalization or death from Covid are covered, either because they have risk factors or because they are over 60 years of age.
"
Covered
" means with
two doses
, according to different scientific studies that delve into the enormous transmissibility of Delta.
We will return to this point, alluding to some statements by the Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Daniel Gollan.
Free vaccination train stations for over 35 years in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Photo Juano Tesone
In the city of Buenos Aires, 47% of those over 60 years of age have a complete vaccination.
In the Province of Buenos Aires, 63%.
Nationwide,
45% received two doses
.
However, the remaining
55% have their borders: either they received a single dose against the coronavirus or they have none
.
The distribution of that percentage is not good news.
The
37%
of +60 (2,705,151 persons) received half of the vaccination.
17.8%, apparently, no dose
.
The problems related to the scope of the vaccination campaign were already reported by
Clarín
.
So, from the ministry that Carla Vizzotti leads, they explained something logical: as there was no
2020 census
, elementary population data is lacking.
So it is known how many people were vaccinated, but not how many still need to be vaccinated.
Provisionally, the INDEC projections for 2021 are used.
Doctors, in an Intensive Care Unit, with Covid patients.
Photo EFE
That almost 18% (
1,298,516 individuals
) not vaccinated could "
not exist
", as a "margin of uncertainty" in the projection.
But a figure of such magnitude suggests that one part is a calculation error and another is due to coverage difficulties.
Campaigns, in general, do not reach many people.
For now, without that 18% "not vaccinated", it
would be necessary to apply, at a minimum, 2,705,151 doses at +60
.
For
Enrique Bassat
, epidemiologist and researcher at the Institute of Global Health (IGLobal) in Barcelona, the threshold for being less concerned about the wave to come is "having
70% of the population over 60 with a complete scheme
."
Roberto Debbag
, president-elect of the Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectology, believes that it is not enough: "It should be 90%, not to say that all people with comorbidities and over 60 should already have both doses."
As he warned, "although there are a few weeks before the continuous intensity, Delta could come soon, in the
next 15 days
."
Approaches
There is much talk about the "
lack of data culture in Argentina
."
One would like to easily understand what coverage is lacking in order to be "calm" against Delta, but it is not that easy.
Numerical breakdowns of official sites are often sparse.
And sometimes confusing.
According to INDEC projections, there would be 7,279,394 people 60 years of age or older in the country.
The Public Vaccination Monitor says that this segment received 9,256,605 doses.
Vaccination against Covid in the province of Buenos Aires.
Photo Xinhua
As Health ensures that 45% (3,275,727 people) already have a complete scheme, a couple of simple accounts allow deducing that
82% received at least one dose.
However,
the Government assures that it is 90%.
The difference has an explanation.
Since in March it was decided to delay the doses of the schemes to immunize more people with half a vaccine, the official reports emphasize the achievements in this regard, something objectively good, but insufficient compared to Delta.
In this case, it means that the 90% highlighted in the press reports include (confirmed in Health)
those over 60 years of age from other priority groups
.
In other words, health personnel, security forces, teachers ... Contrary to how the breakdowns are made in the Public Vaccination Monitor.
Quiet and covered
The Strategic Vaccination Plan estimates some
5,653,000 people between the ages of 18 and 59 with some comorbidity
.
Although at the end of this note the national data of coverage with two doses to these people had not been obtained, the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health confirmed a useful reference to orient themselves: only
15%
completed the scheme.
66.4% have at least one dose.
In any case, the Public Vaccination Monitor ensures that 5,041,368 doses were applied in that segment.
To achieve the complete scheme,
6,264,632 more doses would be missing
.
Adding the "minimum" of those over 60 detailed above, the vaccines to meet the goal set by Debbag (
all risk with full
schedule
) are
8,969,783 doses
.
Lowering the coverage requirement to
70%
(Bassat's proposal),
3,807,378 doses
would be required
.
At a rate of
330,000 applications per day
(average for the last 15 days), it would take
11.5 days to
achieve this.
For 100% coverage,
27 days.
Vaccines in focus
This Tuesday, in an interview in which the journalist Ernesto Tenembaum (
Radio con vos
) delved into the impact of the Delta variant, Minister Daniel Gollan downplayed the importance of the two doses in those who received
AstraZeneca and Sputnik, compared to Sinopharm.
In the face of Delta, the fundamentals of those sayings are difficult to understand.
While
immunity data with a dose of Sputnik are encouraged
in a recent paper led by Conicet Senior researcher
Andrea Gamarnik
and published in the journal Cell, that study (due to the dates of the work) did not contemplate the variant originating in India.
As for AstraZeneca, just read
the recent article "
Spike-antibody waning after second dose of BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1
"
in
The Lancet
.
Not only is the role of the two doses reaffirmed, but it analyzes the drop in anti-spike antibodies in Pfizer and AstraZeneca
when the gap between injections is stretched to 70 days or more.
But they do not fall the same.
Without detracting from the other forms of human immunity (neutralizing antibodies, cellular memory ...), the loss of anti-S antibodies with Pfizer, when the doses are delayed, is two times.
With AstraZeneca, five times.
ACE
Look also
Sinopharm vaccine response to Delta variant evaluated for the first time
Nicolás Kreplak anticipated that a third wave of coronavirus would be with "many infections but of little severity"
