Uruguay receives its first shipment of vaccines 2:12
(CNN Spanish) - It
all began on March 13, 2020. On that day, Uruguay was the last country in South America to detect the virus in its territory that paralyzed the world and transformed it as this generation had never seen before.
Quickly, the then new government headed by Luis Lacalle Pou took strong restrictive measures that, together with the obedience and responsibility of the population, allowed the virus to be kept at bay for at least seven months.
Uruguay was then highlighted as the country that was best controlling the pandemic in Latin America, with one of the lowest rates of infections, few deaths and a relatively active economy.
While in many countries mandatory quarantines were imposed with movement restriction and local doctors, including the former president of Uruguay Tabaré Vázquez, suggested the same measure, the government opted for what it called “responsible freedom”: it closed borders, educational centers, public offices, clubs, entertainment venues, most private activities, such as construction, and established strong protocols for the entire private sector, but without formally prohibiting travel.
MIRA: Uruguay is one of the last countries in the region to receive vaccines against covid-19
The motto repeated ad nauseam was "stay home."
The population responded.
Without the need for police checkpoints or sanctions for passersby, the streets looked empty.
And also the hospitals and the Intensive and Intermediate Care Units (ICU), waiting for a tsunami that did not arrive.
The economy was slowly reactivated.
In April 2020, a month after the declaration of the sanitary emergency, construction was restarted, then the commercial premises in the center of the capital Montevideo, schools, restaurants, and “free shops” —tax-free shops— reopened. from the border with Brazil and international flights with restrictions only for residents and citizens - with negative tests for covid-19.
advertising
Little by little, the country was working again with the pandemic under control, and it was already possible to speculate that the small country, decoupled from its infected neighbors, could become the “New Zealand of Latin America” and a strong magnet for events and international investments.
But then the cases of covid-19 increased in Uruguay
However, that did not happen.
There is a Uruguayan saying that states that it says that in this small southern country - of about 3.5 million inhabitants - everything takes a little longer, but it comes.
And when a part of the world received the second wave of covid-19, the first arrived in Uruguay.
Although it was not a tsunami, as of November 2020 the contagion curve stopped being flat and rose.
The protocols to enter Uruguay 1:08
According to the scientists, the porous border - especially with southern Brazil - and the extensive trade that exists there, had allowed the virus to re-enter, while the ever-increasing opening of the economy had caused it to circulate increasingly.
With infections and interned in intensive care units growing exponentially and with the imminence of the end of the year holidays and the southern summer, the government decided in December 2020 to close the borders again and regulated the constitutional article that guarantees in Uruguay the right of assembly.
From "responsible freedom" we moved to "coexistence in solidarity" and from "stay at home" to the notion of "moving inside the bubble".
In those days the news broke: the weekly search published that in November 2020 Uruguay had responded to the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer that it was not interested in its vaccine.
When the news was known, the government fired the person who sent the email to the laboratory from his account: the coordinator of International Relations of the Ministry of Public Health, Franco Allagia.
Almost simultaneously, the press reported that the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, had offered to help Uruguay receive the vaccine developed by Russia Sputnik V. An offer that - according to the newspaper El Observador - President Lacalle Pou had not initially considered and that, a week later, he decided to accept.
LOOK: The effectiveness of vaccines against covid-19: what is the most effective vaccine?
Given this situation, entered 2021 Uruguay only had the promise of the 1,500,000 doses that it had reserved - and announced - in October 2020, within the framework of the Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The arrival date of these doses was uncertain and, at the same time, the Uruguayan authorities were late joining the race of all governments to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies.
Thus, from being the leading country in handling the pandemic, Uruguay became the only one in Latin America without having vaccines against covid-19 in its territory.
The last to receive them.
Why?
According to the newspaper La Nación, the explanation given by the Uruguayan government is that “the country did what it thought was most convenient, which was to enter the Covax mechanism (Global Access Fund for Covid-19 Vaccines) and that in the southern spring there were few cases and the virus was contained, so negotiations with laboratories were not accelerated on a bilateral basis ”.
On January 22, the Uruguayan government announced bilateral agreements to purchase vaccines from the US companies Pfizer and the Chinese company Sinovac.
An announcement that was confirmed a month later, on February 22, when President Lacalle Pou announced the arrival of a first batch of 192,000 Sinovac vaccines, which finally arrived from Chile on Thursday night.
Despite being the last to receive them, the Uruguayan authorities trust that the country will now be able to vaccinate its population more quickly than the rest of Latin America, taking advantage of having a small territory without major geographical accidents, a low demography and a universal system. of health that accesses every corner.
MIRA: Chile, leader in the region's vaccination process
The first to be vaccinated, the Uruguayan government announced, will be education personnel, the military, police and firefighters.
Contrary to what happened in other countries, health personnel will be vaccinated only afterwards, when the vaccines from the Pfizer company, with greater proven effectiveness, arrive, presumably in the first half of March.
Thus, instead of taking advantage of the good management of the pandemic to re-boost the economy, as was envisioned in mid-2020, the economic and social effects of the crisis were increasingly being felt: a fall of approximately 4.5% in the GDP (higher than the 3% predicted by international organizations, although the official figure will be known in March), an increase in poverty of between two and four points, and 30% more people living on the streets.
Until this Thursday, Uruguay has registered more than 55,695 coronavirus infections and 595 deaths.
An average of more than 660 infections per day since the pandemic began and 170 deaths per million inhabitants.
In May 2020, the coordinator of the scientific group that advises the government, Rafael Radi, had used a soccer analogy - the language that Uruguayans understand best - to explain the situation of relative control in the country: “It's like playing games. a match in La Paz at 4,000 meters and we are holding 0-0, we are quite happy, but they can beat us in three minutes ”.
Currently, no one doubts that the game is lost, although it is not clear by how many goals.
Covid-19