Covid Vaccination Argentina

As an avid watcher of the La Nacion Dashboard on Covid infection data, dropping in to share this good news, which isn't directly about vaccinations but related.
Checking back to early January, in the time frame when the new infection rates in Argentina and particularly in CABA had been in decline and then suddenly started rocketing, with 7 day infection numbers for Palermo going to 550+ and Recoleta close behind in the near 500 range and other barrios in the 300's, the numbers, recently, in CABA have been in decline again.
Today the numbers in the chart below look to be 'crashing' from those highs of the past month or more.
Palermo never at less than 100 (ultimo 7 dias) until this morning. And CABA wide with 'only' 351 new infections yesterday.
View attachment 7619
Yes, the fall in reported infections is interesting, I follow the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Argentina and the percentage increases are very low again (0.2-0.3%).

We know Argentina hasn't done enough testing, even though it was supposed to be focused.. maybe it's slacked off even more now? Or testing isn't done in the right places? (for comparison, the touristy Los Rios region in Chile with 2.4% of the population is responsible for about 30% of new COVID cases there, if testing was focused on the capital this would be totally missed).

I also follow https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938, which unfortunately doesn't include Argentina, but you can see the surge in excess deaths (the only real way to measure the impact of COVID) in Chile.
 
Yes, the fall in reported infections is interesting, I follow the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Argentina and the percentage increases are very low again (0.2-0.3%).
We know Argentina hasn't done enough testing, even though it was supposed to be focused.. maybe it's slacked off even more now? Or testing isn't done in the right places? (for comparison, the touristy Los Rios region in Chile with 2.4% of the population is responsible for about 30% of new COVID cases there, if testing was focused on the capital this would be totally missed).
I also follow https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938, which unfortunately doesn't include Argentina, but you can see the surge in excess deaths (the only real way to measure the impact of COVID) in Chile.
Very interesting data and good question about Argentina's testing.
I also previously followed the Wikipedia page, until discovering the La Nacion dashboard and it's rich presentation.
Selfishly I suppose, my focus has been on CABA and trying to judge the risks of being on the streets or in shops and in CABA barrios.

The La Nacion Dashboard data is derived here: Base de datos abiertos del Ministerio de Salud de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.
https://data.buenosaires.gob.ar/dataset/casos-covid-19

And here is this morning's La Nacion Dashboard, almost shocking to me, this CABA data.
Of course this downward lurch might just be down to La Nacion taking it's eye off the ball in it's salacious devotion to destroying the President and current government over the extra-curricular vaccinations permitted. Tomorrow's data will be an interesting follow up to this.

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An Aerolineas Argentinas plane goes to China
in search of a million Sinopharm vaccines expected to immunize 500,000 people.

It leaves this afternoon and arrives back in Argentina on Thursday.
The departure of the flight was scheduled for 13:00. The operation includes special logistics and will require 48 hours, with a stopover in Madrid and will arrive back in Ezeiza on Thursday minutes before 22:00 horas.
The vaccines require refrigeration between 2 and 8 ° C. Envirotainers will be used, which are special containers with active temperature control, which will allow the entire cargo to be transferred in the aircraft hold.
Source: Pagina12, and according to their sources.
 
Is there a live ticker on P12 where we can follow the flight?
I think you will find that it's an Airbus A330 registration LV-GIF which departed from EZE for MAD at 13.08 under flight number AR1050. It's the same aircraft that was previously used for other vaccine pickups.

You can track it now here: https://www.flightradar24.com/ARG1050/26e5c1d0
And see the history here: https://www.airfleets.net/flightlog/index.php?file=result&app=a330&msn=1748
(Other flight tracking services are available)
 
23 February 2021...9:00pm...by Fabiola Czubaj
Coronavirus: Why did the City incorporate seven private providers to vaccinate people over 80 years of age?
With the beginning of the vaccination stage for the elderly, the City enabled this prioritized group with certain coverage plans to receive the doses through their usual providers. For that, the local Ministry of Health designated as Vaccination Centers against SARS-CoV-2 the Hospitals Italiano, Aleman and Britanico, Cemic, the Sanatorio Güemes (for affiliates to its Hominis plan and the health plan of the Trade Unións of the Trabajadores Hoteleros y Gastronómicos de la República Argentina (Osuthgra)), the Health Plan of the Empleados de Comercio (Osecac) and the Health Plan of the Employees of the City of BA. It is about 9,900 units of the Covishield vaccine of the 40,000 that the Nation assigned to the jurisdiction. That is, one in four of those doses. This distribution to providers earned the City a criminal complaint for “privatizing” the immunization against Covid-19.

From the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health, in charge of Fernán Quirós, they have another explanation: “We open the possibility to prepaid and trade union health plans to participate in the vaccination campaign. So far, seven have accepted that appear on this article so that the elderly know how to access the shifts. An agreement is signed with all of them by which the City undertakes to provide the vaccines and, on the side of the provider, there is a person responsible for their conservation, transfer and the immediate beginning of the application to its members according to the stages of vaccination defined by the national government. "

That agreement includes, as detailed, the obligation to deliver the list of the beneficiaries to the Ministry of Health. This data, at the same time, serves to define the proportion with which doses will be assigned to each provider with each shipment that the district receives from the Ministry of Health of the Nation. "The application protocol is the same for all citizens of CABA, including the 30-minute observation after the administration of the doses. In terms of time, it is required that they do not delay the start of vaccination as soon as they receive the doses ”, continued a collaborator of Quirós. "They were just sent to them today," he said.

Vaccination of those over 80 in the district began yesterday. Between yesterday and today, in the 180 posts with vaccinators distributed in 29 out-of-hospital posts, 9018 doses of the first of the Covishield vaccine (AstraZeneca/Oxford) were applied, in addition to 511 in nursing homes yesterday. With the seven providers, as explained by Health, 45 more positions are incorporated. In each of them, about 28 people are vaccinated in one day.

“It allows us to expand the options for the vaccine to reach the population. We needed the vaccination to be as fast and accessible as possible as the doses are delivered to us ”, added the official spokesperson to this medium. He also affirmed that the logistics expenses are paid by the City and that the shifts that are assigned through these seven providers are added to the 5000 that are assigned through the public system. "If we receive [from the Nation] a percentage of the vaccines that the City needs, the providers with whom an agreement was signed are sent the same proportion according to the list of subscribers they presented," he said.

Complaint. The lawyer Natalia Salvo asked the federal court to investigate the City's decision to incorporate seven private sector providers and trade union health plans in the district's vaccination plan through the delivery of doses to its members. The accusation is against the head of the City of BA government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and Quirós, for the crime of non-compliance with the duties of a public official. It will be investigated by the Federal Court No. 4, which is headed by Judge Ariel Lijo. With this, for Salvo, the City of BA would be granting privileges to affiliates of prepaid and trade union health plans to access the vaccine over the rest of the population.

"One thing is to agree to a cooperation with an entity, to use its facilities and there carry out the vaccination, as it happens in the province of Buenos Aires, and another thing is to make an agreement with prepaid and trade union health plans to deliver the vaccines so that they administer them to their affiliates. They are two very different things, "the lawyer told the Télam agency. Added to the complaint were criticisms from Buenos Aires legislators from the Frente de Todos and from the City of BA deputy of the PTS on the Left Front, Myriam Bregman.
 
23 February 2021....10:00pm....by María Cafferata
The details of the plan for teachers. Vaccination: how the 904 thousand doses that will arrive from China will be distributed.
The national government announced the beginning of the vaccination campaign for teaching staff across the country with the doses developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm. The decision was communicated by the new Minister of Health of the Nation, Carla Vizzotti, within the framework of the first meeting she held with the Federal Council of Health, in which all the provincial Health ministers participate. The objective, now, is that a part of the batch of 904 thousand doses that will arrive on Thursday night from Beijing are destined to immunize teachers starting next week. The Minister of Education, Nicolás Trotta, detailed how the vaccination plan will be for teachers in five phases, according to the established priority order.

Within days of the start of classes in much of the country, the Ministry of Health made the decision to begin vaccinating teaching personnel in order to immunize as many male and female teachers as possible at the beginning of the school year. "Health, Security and Armed Forces personnel are already being vaccinated. The time has come to start vaccinating the teachers who will be in front of the classrooms with our children," they explained to Página / 12 from Casa Rosada. The decision was announced by Carla Vizzotti together with the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, during a meeting with the provincial health ministers, within the framework of the Federal Health Council. During the meeting, the operational details for the start of the vaccination of teachers in all jurisdictions were discussed since, as confirmed by sources who participated in the meeting, all ministers agreed on the importance of starting with the immunization of teaching staff.

On Thursday at 10 p.m., about 904 thousand doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China will arrive at the Ezeiza Airport. In turn, it is expected that next week, about 96 thousand more doses will arrive, thus completing the one million doses purchased by the national government after long negotiations with the Chinese government. With a part of this million doses - not all - teachers throughout the country will be vaccinated. With this objective in mind, Vizzotti had already issued, last Sunday, resolution 688/2021 that authorized the Sars Cov-2 vaccine on an emergency basis, developed by Sinopharm in collaboration with the Beijing Institute of Biological Products Laboratory of the People's Republic of China.

Coinciding with the start date of classes, the vaccines will begin to be distributed next week. "An equitable and federal distribution will be made among the provinces, as has been done until now," the Presidency indicated, so it is calculated that the distribution percentages for each jurisdiction will be the same. The one million Sinopharm vaccines, however, will not be destined exclusively for teaching personnel, but will depend on how advanced the different stages of vaccination are in each province.

In other words, in jurisdictions in which, as in the City of Buenos Aires, part of the Health workers still need to be vaccinated, the remaining Health personnel must first be advanced. The vaccination of teachers, then, will not be homogeneous and simultaneous, but will subordinate the rate of vaccination of each place.

In total, between the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, the universe of teaching (and non-teaching) personnel in the entire country comprises 1,458,000 people, so the Ministry of Education of the Nation established an order of prioritized groups. In the first there will be the direction and management personnel, the supervision and inspection personnel, the teachers in front of students of Initial level (including the maternal), those of the first cycle of the primary level, (1st, 2nd and 3rd degree) and those of special education. This group includes about 457,694 people.

The second group will include teaching support personnel, that is, personnel without a teaching appointment but who work in educational establishments. In the third, teachers who teach in the second cycle of primary school (4th to 7th grade) will be included. In the fourth, secondary level teachers, continuing education for young people and adults at all levels, and professional training instructors will be taken into account. Finally, in the fifth group, there will be teachers and non-teachers from higher education institutes and universities.

After months of conflict with the teachers' unions over the conditions for the return to presence in schools, especially in the city of Buenos Aires, the news was very well received by the unions. "We celebrate the announcement made today by the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, about the vaccination of teachers throughout the country. With the arrival of the next batch of vaccines, the Minister decided to give priority to education workers. We believe that The prompt vaccination of all educational personnel is essential to guarantee careful presence, "they said from UTE in a statement.
 
23 February 2021....10:45pm
Minister Trotta announced how the order of priorities will be. The teachers' vaccination program will be structured in five phases.
After the announcement by the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, about the start of the vaccination plan for teaching staff throughout the country, with the dose developed by Sinopharm, the Minister of Education of the Nation, Nicolás Trotta, detailed how the process will be distribution and order of priority for immunization. The vaccination program for teachers and also for non-teaching staff in schools throughout the country includes five phases, according to Trotta. "It has been decided to allocate Sinopharm vaccines to teaching and non-teaching staff in schools, which covers a total population of 1,458,000 throughout the country," said Trotta, and affirmed that, in this way, the "consensuses were ratified. built within the Federal Council of Education ".

According to the detail provided by the minister, the five priority groups of teachers will be:
1) Direction and management personnel, supervision and inspection; teachers in front of students of Initial level (includes maternal cycle), first cycle of primary level, (1st, 2nd and 3rd grade) and special education (a total of 457,694 people).
2) Teaching support staff, all other staff without teaching appointment but who work in educational establishments of compulsory education in different areas and services (247,413 people).
3) Primary level teachers, from the second cycle from 4th to 6th / 7th grades (148,692 in total).
4) Secondary level teachers, permanent education for young people and adults at all levels and professional training instructors (331,099 people).
5) In the last group will be teachers and non-teachers from higher education institutes and universities. (273,185 people).

"2020 was an exceptional year and this vaccine will allow us to recover the normality that the pandemic took from us," Trotta said.
To conclude, he added: "We are in the process of recovering presence in our classrooms, a space where we work every day to equalize rights and opportunities; it is our teachers who carry out this task in coordination with the assistants, directors and everything the staff that make up our educational institutions ”.

According to official information, the shipment consisting of 904,000 doses of Sinopharm will arrive this Thursday at the Ezeiza International Airport on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight from Beijing and it is expected that, in the next few days, through another flight, 96,000 more doses will arrive, which complete the 1,000,000 doses purchased by the national government from Sinopharm.
 
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