While the number of hospitalizations and ventilators has declined in recent weeks, health experts reiterated that it is too early to conclude that the COVID-19 vaccine has already begun to have a collective effect.
The Department of Health and the National Guard have insisted that in order to achieve collective immunity, at least 70% of the population must be vaccinated. In recent weeks, the numbers of hospitalizations, use of ventilators and intensive care have declined after facing the highest peaks between November and December. Yesterday, the Institute of Statistics recorded a total of 407 beds occupied by COVID-19 in country hospitals, while 51 intensive care beds occupied by coronavirus patients and a total of 61 ventilators in use. In December, the number of occupied beds reached 657, while in the intensive care line it climbed to 109 occupied beds and 118 fans in use in December.
In the opinion of Victor Ramos, president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, it is still too early to conclude that the vaccine has begun to have an impact on a collective level. The doctor, however, was hopeful that vaccination in Puerto Rico could be streamlined as doses of vaccines continue to arrive on the island.
“No, the reality is that it’s going to have an impact when we get to that 70%. And what I do think is that we’re doing really well, compared to other places in the world,” said Ramos, who warned that a new variant could lead to a rise in cases on the island.
The doctor opined that due to the delay of the companies Pfizer and Moderna in distributing the vaccines, the island and other U.S. jurisdictions have received the drops dropper. “Pfizer and Moderna did not comply with what they had said they were going to produce and so there was less quantity everywhere, not just in Puerto Rico, in all the states and territories. But they are supposed to already go to reach the pace they said from the second half of January and eventually other vaccines will enter the market and we will have many more vaccines to be able to move forward in the phase, ”he mentioned.
According to figures from the Department of Health, 112,582 people had been vaccinated by yesterday. However, the agency’s press staff indicated that the figure corresponds to the vaccines administered and registered in the system. “More have been vaccinated than are in the process of being registered on the platform,” said Lisdián Acevedo, DS press officer.
While for the infectologist Ángels Rodríguez, the vaccine could begin to have an impact at least in the medical class as they are more exposed to viruses than the rest of the population. “This should start to have an impact on the collective. First because they are the people who provide direct service to patients and the people who are now receiving their second dose are from the hospital,” argued the epidemiologist, who he also opined that hospitalization and fan use figures could rise in the coming days after the Christmas celebrations.
As of Thursday, the United States had administered more than 10.8 million vaccines against COVID-19, according to US media Bloomberg.
While the epidemiologist Cruz Nazario has pointed out that, in order to achieve collective immunity, around 2,555,000 people must be vaccinated in Puerto Rico, which could double to a total of 5,100,000 vaccines. administered after the second dose.
The health worker, however, expressed concern about the pace at which vaccines have been administered in Puerto Rico and opined that vaccination in Puerto Rico is slow and that this could prevent the country from completing the process in 2021 as this has been anticipated by country government agencies. “It appears in the newspapers that the most vaccinated are about 2,000 or 3,000 people a day and if you do the calculations, at the same rate of vaccination – and that they arrive in Puerto Rico between 30,000 preventive vaccines – at this rate in three years we have not vaccinated 85%, “argued the teacher.
He has also criticized the government’s handling of COVID-19 vaccination due to vaccination centers that have not been prepared to administer doses to patients. “It’s the same problem we’ve always had of giving incomplete and confusing information to the population and then complaining that the population isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s that you’re not speaking clearly,” he said.