The “Learning over time” to which the Chief of Cabinet, Santiago Cafiero, referred to explain why the Argentine Government decided to modify by DNU recently 8 months later the law that prevented him from buying Pfizer vaccines cost Argentina many deaths. It is known: the more vaccines are given, fewer lives are lost.
The mathematical estimate indicates that in the country there were about 11 thousand deaths for coronavirus more than would have occurred, between the beginning of January and the end of June, if the contract with the American laboratory was signed, as originally stipulated, in December 2020.
The calculation gives, exactly, 11,227 extra kills. They are approximately 12 percent of the total number of Covid deaths in the country: a little more than one in 10 deaths could have been avoided if Argentina had had that extra amount of vaccines.
In this case, they were the doses offered by the laboratory that made its major phase 3 trial in the Central Military Hospital, and the opportunity to have an important stock was opened due to that privilege. Pfizer’s vaccine, after the successful test in Argentina, was the first to be approved by ANMAT.
The calculation arises from what, it is estimated, would have been until today the number of vaccines that the country would have received if it had been done in a timely manner. a law that will adapt to the conditions required by the laboratory in the context of the pandemic.
When everything could be different. The President with the CEO of Pfizer Argentina, Nicolás Vaquer, and the infectologist Fernando Polack, on July 10, 2020. Photo: Presidency.
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Of the total 13 million doses that Pfizer offered the country last year before the negotiations bogged down, it is likely that by this time of year they would have arrived 4.9 million. While Argentina could not advance in their contract, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Paraguay achieved theirs.
This number of potential vaccines arrived comes from what happened with the deliveries in Chile. That country contracted 10 million vaccines, received the first batch on December 24, 2020 and in June it added 3.8 million doses landed in its territory. Following that proportion, the account would have reported almost 5 million doses to Argentina in the same period.
To date, the country has inoculated a total of 21,643,972 doses, since December 30, and during the first semester it had 50,929 deaths (There were 43,375 from March to December 2020). If Pfizer’s 4.9 million had been added to that stock of doses, the total number of vaccines injected into Argentines would have been at this point 26.543.972. The total of deaths would then have been much lower: between January and June, 39,702.
According to the parameters used by the Ministry of Health itself to calculate how much the number of infections and deaths was reduced from vaccination, it is possible to say that instead of 2,835,540 infections registered between January 1 and June 30, with the Pfizer vaccines added to the other existing ones, the cases would have dropped to 2.211.776. This is, 623,764 less.
Taking into account the fatality rate for Covid in the first half of this year, 1.8 percent, the number of deaths that would not have taken place out of that total number of cases is located at 11.227. Both this figure and the difference in registered cases take into account the proportion of vaccinated with one and two doses in the analyzed temporal space.
The Legal and Technical Secretary, Vilma Ibarra, yesterday announcing the DNU that from now on the vaccine law changes.
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A similar calculation had been made on June 8 by Minister Carla Vizzotti, stating in an official statement: “When one analyzes what would have happened in week 16 to 20 and what actually happened, estimates indicate that 5,500 deaths averted during that period in Argentina ”.
In other words, the minister’s projection evaluated five weeks in May. Using the same criteria, it is now possible to determine how many deaths could not be avoided in the 27 weeks that the year has taken, due to the fact that it has not been advance in time with the Pfizer contract.
Unfortunately, that lost time cannot be made up. The apparent nonsense is that it seems to have occurred the whole round to return to the point of origin: the Government needed 8 months to find the solution to replace sovereign assets as collateral against eventual lawsuits for the creation of a repair fund; and he had no choice, finally, but to eliminate the concept of “negligence” of the vaccine law.
The new possibility of buying vaccines from Pfizer – or of receiving a donation from the United States – will now allow not only to add more doses and inoculate a greater number of people with their complete scheme, but that population will probably be made up of minors from 12 to 17 years old, starting with those who suffer from risky pathologies.
Until now, this age group did not have a response in the country and there was a very strong claim from families, although in China the Sinopharm vaccine it was approved for minors between 3 and 17 years of age, as was the Sinovac one. The latter’s trial – not available in Argentina – has already been published in The Lancet magazine. Now Sinopharm is expected to do the same.
In any case, it also remains for the ANMAT to analyze the effectiveness and safety of these vaccines for use by minors. An advantage in the case of Pfizer is that it has already been authorized by the US FDA for the health target in question. In fact, Uruguay and Chile -which have this vaccine named Comirnaty- have already taken the lead in the region and began to vaccinate children under 18 years of age.
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