Queues to get vaccinated at the Casernes primary care center (Barcelona) this Wednesday.Alejandro García / EFE
Spain fails to meet the goal of vaccinating 80% of those over 80 in March
It is difficult to identify a public policy more important to the entire world than the advancement of vaccination.
It saves lives and with it also the economy: we have already verified that regardless of the control measures, people do not feel safe to resume their routines while the threat of contagion remains.
But I think we are not solving well the two central dilemmas posed by its implementation.
In the dilemma between efficiency and equity, we are producing vaccination schemes that at the international level follow profoundly unequal channels.
Those countries that are more skilled (Chile, Israel) and with better access to prior negotiation (USA, United Kingdom) are already with middle-aged people.
Meanwhile, in Spain not even three-quarters of those over 80 have been reached. It also happens within countries, particularly in those that are more unequal: detailed plans were proposed that marked an order considered as equitable, but the weight of reality has ended up giving de facto priority to those with better access to health.
This, however, has continued to be enveloped in syrupy rhetoric less and less corresponding to reality.
At the same time, the dilemma between trust in vaccines and transparency around unexpected effects has been poorly resolved.
When an abnormally high (but equally rare) level of a specific type of thrombus was detected in people with the AstraZeneca vaccine, the headlines danced between unfounded scaremongering and simplistic contempt.
The focus should actually be on how well the surveillance system worked, and the fact that we need millions of administered doses to detect, characterize, and even suggest treatment for this type of effect, which is not linked to the vaccine. still confirmed.
In both cases, many public voices opted for paternalism over transparency.
Instead of informing the population of the harshness of the dilemmas we face and committing ourselves to a solution bearing the costs, stressing that they are less than the benefits, we opted to put them under a blanket.
But people face similar uncertainties (and resolve them) on a day-to-day basis.
Ignoring them in vaccination does not strengthen, but rather weakens, the crucial process for us to regain something close to normalcy.
@jorgegalindo
