La Nación / 234 thousand doses of anti-COVID vaccines arrived

A total of 384,000 Sinopharm vaccines against COVID-19 arrived in Argentina this Sunday from China, as part of a shipment of one million doses that will be completed in the coming days, the government reported in a statement.

On Monday, another flight will land with 371,200 doses and on Tuesday the last 244,800 doses will arrive, with which Argentina will accumulate about 10 million vaccines between Sputnik V, Sinopharm and AstraZeneca.

“Each one of these doses that arrive is hope, it is life,” said the Vice Minister of Health, Sandra Tirado, in statements to the press at the Ezeiza international airport (south), which serves Buenos Aires.

This new million Sinopharm vaccines will be destined to apply second doses to people who have already received the Chinese immunizer, reported the Ministry of Health.

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Until this Sunday, more than seven million Argentines have been vaccinated: some 6.32 million received a dose of some of the vaccines that arrived in the country, while 872,133 have already been immunized with the two doses, according to the Public Monitor of Vaccination.

The Argentine government had decided in March to prioritize vaccination with the first dose to as many people as possible and to postpone the second application for about three months, which will remain in effect, Tirado explained.

Argentina is on alert for a wave of infections, with days of up to 30,000 cases in 24 hours, four times more than two months ago.

The occupancy of intensive care units reached 76.6% on Sunday in the metropolitan area of ​​Buenos Aires, where a third of the 45 million Argentines live and which concentrates half of the daily cases of coronavirus.

In the last 24 hours, 170 people died and 15,012 people became infected with COVID-19, according to the official report this Sunday. Argentina adds 61,644 deaths and 2,860,884 cases since the start of the pandemic.

“Today we have an explosive cocktail: record of infections, intensive therapy above the levels reached in the first wave, more contagious variants and a health system that is much more stressed,” the minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Roberto Salvarezza.

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He added that “if the curve continues to rise and the stress on the health system increases, obviously more restrictions will have to be taken.”

10 days ago the government of Alberto Fernández restricted night circulation by decree, limited commercial activities and suspended face-to-face classes until April 30 in the metropolitan area (Buenos Aires and its periphery).

However, the measures were partially complied with by the capital’s mayor, the right-wing opponent Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who kept the schools open and took the case to the Supreme Court, which must rule amid the political dispute.

The restrictions are met in the periphery that is part of the province of Buenos Aires, governed by the ruling Axel Kicillof.

Source: AFP.

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