Chile is advancing a vaccination campaign against Covid-19 that surpasses not only its Latin American neighbors, but also much of the world, putting the South American nation on track to become the first developing country to achieve immunity from ramat.
More than 22% of Chile’s 19 million people have already received at least one dose, a feat surpassed only by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, according to Our World in Data, an Oxford University project that a follow-up to the global vaccine launch.
Most days in the last month, 1.1% of Chile’s population (more than 200,000 people a day) has been vaccinated. Last week, Chile administered 1.06 doses per 100 inhabitants, just like Israel and more than any other country. The government plans to cover 80% of its people in June.
Rodrigo Yáñez, who led the government’s negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, attributes the success to a strategy of making a wide network and starting in the first negotiations that allowed Chile to seal agreements with Pfizer Inc. AstraZeneca PLC from the UK The government also funded and organized Phase 3 clinical trials with various pharmaceutical companies, which helped make vaccines easier.
Chile’s success is a lesson for the United States Unlike several U.S. states that have a high percentage of people who are skeptical of vaccines, Chileans overwhelmingly favor the puncture and have been less combative against mask mandates and restrictive measures. A survey conducted by Cadem last week, for example, found that 62% were in favor of maintaining a nationwide curfew nationwide. And, unlike several South American countries, Chile faced fewer political disputes over the government’s handling of the crisis.
“Here, the culture of the people is that if we have to get vaccinated, we get vaccinated,” said Jaime Mañalich, a doctor who had served as Chile’s health minister until June.
Advances in Chile, which is relatively prosperous with the third highest per capita income in Latin America, according to the World Bank, contrast with the rest of the region. Latin America has only 8% of the world’s population, but has accounted for nearly a third of the deaths from Covid-19. Vaccination efforts developed slowly, hampered by supply constraints and corruption scandals that have led to the resignation of civil servants and criminal investigation.
About 4% of Brazil’s 210 million people have received the first doses, according to health authorities, which helped little as a more contagious variant spread and killed a record number of people. Internal political crises in Peru and Venezuela delayed talks on vaccine acquisition. Colombia, a 50-million-nation country and the last of the region’s top economies to receive vaccines, had administered 360,000 doses as of Tuesday.
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Chile, meanwhile, has 10 million vaccines, with agreements signed to receive more than enough to vaccinate the 15 million that health authorities say are needed to achieve herd immunity.
Chileans widely approve of how President Sebastian Piñera’s government manages the pandemic, according to a poll.
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Esteban Felix / Associated Press
Among those recently inoculated was Edith Fuentealba, a 68-year-old housewife. “I’m the type of person who has goosebumps just thinking about a needle,” said Ms. Fuentealba, who described her fear of the vaccine. But Ms. Fuentealba said she went last month to the bicentennial stadium in Santiago, one of the public spaces converted into vaccination centers, to get her first punch.
She is now preparing to receive her second dose next week. “Now I don’t even care,” he said.
Although Chile has recorded 21,000 deaths and nearly 900,000 cases of coronavirus, the progress of vaccinations has been a bright spot in a country that at the end of 2019 was affected by mass protests against the conservative government of President Sebastián Piñera .
Vaccines against Covid-19 in Chile by age groups
Next month, Chileans will elect the 155 members of an assembly that will draft a new charter to address widespread demands for more social reforms and workers’ rights. A recent Cadem poll shows that Chileans widely approve of the government’s management of the pandemic and that there are more people optimistic about the future than pessimistic.
However, not everyone is satisfied with the government’s performance. “Having the government successful with vaccines will not change the unrest or the social uproar,” said Matias Jara, a 29-year-old medical resident. Jara has already received two doses of vaccine, for which he accredits the country’s primary health care network and a 60-year history of mass vaccinations.
Mañalich, former Minister of Health, said that the success of the implementation of vaccination shows that the Chilean system works and that wholesale changes to the economic model must be avoided.
“The pandemic has given us a chance to reflect and I think we should try to preserve the institutions,” Mañalich said. He said the country benefited from a “big bet” by paying in advance for pharmaceutical contracts, before any guarantee of a viable vaccine. He said paying high vaccine prices was inconvenient, but “we had to look for all possible tools to fight the virus.”
—Maolis Castro in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this article.
Write to Kejal Vyas to [email protected]
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