“Please, Carla, tell us something.”
Aerolineas Argentinas flight AR 1062 to Moscow had been postponed for several days. The last part, the one that now seemed definitive, had announced that the ship would take off on Monday night and that it would bring 600 thousand Sputnik V vaccines. But that same day, as the hours passed, the versions multiplied in the corridors of the Casa Rosada and rumors spread in the governorates throughout the country.
The news portals and the sockets of the TV channels began to anticipate information that many governors did not know. Did the media lie? Were they exaggerating? Or was a major source leaking information? It would later be known, to the chagrin of those who see journalists as the axis of evil, that it was the third option. On the cell phone of Carla Vizzotti, the vice minister of national Health, messages were accumulating.
Vizzotti shares with his boss, Ginés González García, a WhatsApp group that brings together the ministers of Health of the 23 provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. She is the one who informs, the one who provides the logistical details of the vaccine route in real time, the one who calls the shots. It is also the one that sometimes succumbs to long silences. Those silences are often revealing. They were in the last week: the ministers assume that, when that happens, it is better to turn on the screens to know what is happening.
Ginés hardly interacts in the group. His second has earned the respect of the majority of chat participants, not just those who lead efforts of the same political sign. Always answer in a good tone and if necessary open a private conversation with one of the ministers. Since the end of last week, however, provincial officials have not found quick answers on many occasions. The questions were repeated. Several ministers were exasperated. The governors asked them for explanations that they could not give them.
“We are waiting for answers.” As soon as we know something I’m going to tell you Vizzotti promised.
The concerns did not stop. They became more tense on Monday night, when the postponement of the flight was announced again, which would eventually take off 24 hours later. The governors relegated their health ministers and began to ask Olivos for answers. More than one said they had exchanged messages with Alberto Fernández and Ginés. Neither were they in a position to give forceful answers. Simply, in a moment, from Russia they stopped answering the calls.
The ministers always stood online with Vizzotti. The questions were all in the same spirit and varied as news arrived: “What happens with the Aerolineas plane that does not leave? Why is it taking so long? What is happening? Is it true that the 600 thousand doses do not come? What will happen to my province if only 200 thousand arrive? promised … How many are going to touch me? “.
Vizzotti, González García and informal spokesmen (one of them operated almost like a minister in the shadows, with bleak but highly accurate information, according to a governor of the central zone of the country) rehearsed explanations. They said that the supply of vaccines had been blocked throughout the world and that Argentina could not be left out. They didn’t tell the whole truth. Not in all countries it got stuck like in Argentina. Not to go too far: Chile, with a population of less than 19 million inhabitants, has just received two million doses from China.
From Olivos they urged not to lose calm with the laboratories and, much less, with international political ties. Among the arguments that they used, they cited that the thermal boxes of the DHL company are in short supply. That you have to get used to the idea that, just as at one time there was no glass for the ampoules and the companies that manufactured them could not cope, now the same is happening with other vital elements for packaging and shipments. That the manufacturing operations and transfers are too complex, in short. More in reserve they spoke of an all-out war between laboratories and the most powerful countries, which are planted with higher demands to the detriment of those in development.
“We do not know if they lie to the Government or if the Government lie to us,” said one of the leaders of Together for Change in the middle of the week. It is true that the government’s promises frequently fade. That the accumulation of communicational mishaps does not help. On November 6, Alberto Fernández assured that in December the country would be in a position to vaccinate 10 million people. Days later it had to be corrected. He said that that figure would be reached between January and February. Ginés later whitewashed that they had made a bad diagnosis and trusted that 5 million people would receive the vaccine in January. Until today, the last day of the month, and according to official numbers, fewer than 400,000 Argentines have been vaccinated.
The vaccination schedule of the provinces enters a haunting beat. Some examples. The province of Buenos Aires already has 1,549,652 registered who want to be vaccinated and Axel Kicillof estimates that there are 5,800,000 people at risk in his district, out of a total of 12 million Buenos Aires people who should receive the doses. As of Friday, they had vaccinated 111,517. Córdoba has 1,200,000 people at risk and vaccinated 22,084. Santa Fe has the same objective as Córdoba and vaccinated 22,008 Santa Fe. The same number is handled in the City of Buenos Aires, where 24,300 porteños received the first dose.
The wounds in the ruling party due to the handling and information of the vaccine coincided with the complaints that shake Gildo Insfrán, one of the President’s preferred governors, whom in May of last year he considered “one of the best politicians and human beings” .
Horacio Pietragalla’s provincial tour only deepened the contradictions of the Kirchner story. For the Secretary of Human Rights it is “almost a joke” what is denounced. Undisputed referents of the Frente de Todos, even those who made human rights policy their main flag, are conspicuous by their absence. Shut up. They let the position of Pietragalla run as the only truth, despite the images and testimonies. And that Amnesty International warned of “de facto deprivation of liberty” in Formosa.
Insfrán has already gone through several crises during his 25 years as governor. What he never expected was that, after obtaining very comfortable victories in the elections, many people from Formosa would rebel and hold marches right under their nose. He has been sheltering for several weeks in his house in the Emilio Tomás neighborhood, 30 blocks from the center, a mansion painted white and heavily guarded 24 hours a day. It is known as “Gildo’s bunker”. Virtually no one enters.
Little is known of the governor’s private life. He is a man of simple tastes. In recent times his state of health has also become an enigma. Very recently it suffered a pressure spike. There are those who suspect that he had something else. His collaborators handled it as an issue that could not transcend.
Until the latest complaints, Insfrán was seen on Sunday afternoons aboard a Toyota Land Cruiser. He runs it. He likes to walk around the center and roll down his windows to greet the neighbors. Sometimes he parks to take pictures in the main square. They say it’s a strange routine. That he will take it up again when the storm passes.
It will be soon, they say in their environment, and there is no reason to think otherwise.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/vaccines-the-chat-of-ministers-burns-and-the-government-enters-a-labyrinth/
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