Federico Mayol
Ignacio Ortelli
02/19/2021 4:26 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 02/19/2021 4:26 PM
In the midst of the growing denunciations of the opposition regarding the health plan, the Minister of Health, Ginés González García, organized
a secret vaccination operation in his ministry
for leaders and friends that was sought to be kept under strict secrecy and that conspicuously aired at first time this Friday the journalist Horacio Verbitsky, one of the immunized.
The operation took place on Thursday in the building that the minister occupies on 9 de Julio Avenue.
That day, González García traveled to Entre Ríos to monitor the progress of the immunization plan in that province with the governor, and
left the logistics in the hands of his private secretary
.
Clarín
had accessed the information this
Thursday afternoon
.
And he began to corroborate the veracity of the data
late
at
night
in dialogue with government officials and collaborators, who unofficially admitted the existence of the vaccination operation.
Hours later,
Verbitsky surprisingly detailed
part of that operation and admitted that he himself had been one of those vaccinated thanks to his personal negotiations with the Minister of Health.
As this newspaper reconstructed, on Thursday four medical specialists from the Posadas Hospital - some of them high-ranking - arrived at the Ministry of Health after noon at the request of the minister himself with a dozen
doses of the Sputnik V vaccine
,
without knowing who they should. inoculate
.
The logistics, they trusted, was
"ultra secret"
: the specialists
did not arrive at the ministry in official cars
and went up to one of the rooms on the second floor of the ministry
in the private elevator used by González García himself
and the higher-ranking officials.
Horacio Verbitsky, president of CELS and journalist.
Photo: Martín Bonetto.
In total,
ten were vaccinated
.
Among them, in addition to the former columnist of Page12, Senator
Jorge Taiana
and Deputy
Eduardo Valdés
, who on Sunday traveled with President Alberto Fernández to Mexico to participate in the celebration of that country's independence.
Foreign Minister Felipe Solá, who will also travel to Mexico, was also vaccinated.
Solá is 70 years old.
Who were the other six?
There
are reliable versions that there were even more
.
Until the moment of publication of this note, the Minister of Health, his vice Carla Vizzotti;
the Chief of Cabinet of the Ministry, Lisandro Bonelli;
and spokesmen for the portfolio
preferred to remain silent when asked by this newspaper
and did not give
an official response
.
Meanwhile,
González García also did not acknowledge receipt of
Verbitsky's
revelation
and tweeted about his participation in the inauguration of the Economic and Social Council.
Before the consultation of this newspaper, the Presidency of the Nation confirmed to
Clarín
that Alberto Fernández
asked Minister González García for a written explanation
about the entire episode.
Jorge Taiana, national senator and former chancellor.
Valdés, also after
Clarín's
question
, replied that he
was vaccinated at the ceremonial request of the Presidency of the Nation
before the trip to Mexico.
"It was because of my age -the deputy is 65 years old-. They sent me to the Posadas vaccination center and when I'm arriving they tell me to go to the ministry's vaccination center. I arrived, went up to the second floor, they took me to a place where there were four nurses, they vaccinated and I left, "he explained to
Clarín
.
"It was not an illegal clinic," said the deputy
as he left Casa Rosada to have a PCR analysis done
.
The same procedure followed for Taiana: in his surroundings they answered that he
also went to get vaccinated at the Posadas and that in the end they referred him "to the health vaccination center"
.
In the case of Verbitsky, he himself told it by radio, a
few hours after the officials received Clarín's inquiries
about the VIP vaccination.
The national deputy Eduardo Valdés, with Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández, in the act for May 25, 2019.
"I called my old friend Ginés González García, whom I have known for many years, who told me that I had to go to the Posadas Hospital. When I was about to go I received a message from the Ginés secretary, who told me that a team of vaccinators from Posadas to the ministry, and for him to go there to give me the vaccine. Well, I went to the ministry and the vaccination team was there. And I found out there that
Clarín's
number 2
, José Antonio Aranda,
was also going to get vaccinated.
found out in the ministry, "Verbitsky said on the El Uncover radio program in which he participates weekly.
In a brief statement,
José Antonio Aranda
, one of the
Clarín Group
shareholders
,
denied
that he had made
representations to the Ministry of Health or another official to be vaccinated
against COVID by a different path from the one offered to the whole of society by the authorities.
"
I'm just going to do it,
" he said, "
when it is my turn that I will request as soon as
the registration to do so
opens in the city of Buenos Aires
."
The Buenos Aires administration
opened the registry on Friday
.
Consulted by this newspaper,
Verbitsky preferred not to make statements to Clarín
.
The uproar, which escalated over the hours on social networks after Verbitsky's statement, occurs amid opposition criticism of the vaccination plan and after the presentation of a project of Together for Change to punish with imprisonment for those who authorize the application of people who are not yet within the groups to be immunized.
The latest data show that in the country 391,975 people had been vaccinated with the first dose and 241,662 with the second dose.
According to the strategic plan designed by Health,
763 thousand workers are listed as the first priority group
to be immunized: "Personnel from public and private health establishments in a staggered manner according to the risk of their activity."
At the beginning of the month, the essayist Beatriz Sarlo had revealed that she was offered the vaccine "under the table."
"I said 'never', I prefer to die drowning from COVID," he
replied in an exchange with Senator Mariano Recalde in the TN studies, during a discussion related to "corruption."
So far, despite repeated official promises, the country has received four shipments from Moscow for a total of 1,220,000 of both doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, and 580,000 doses of AstraZeneca / Oxford manufactured in India.
In recent weeks, criticism from the opposition has increased in this regard.
The
most controversial
case
took place in Santa Cruz after the mayor of the town of Comandante Luis Piedrabuena, Federico Bodlovic, was immunized together with his wife and his driver before completing the vaccination plan for health personnel.
