From the capacity of the Hospital del Salvador, to the advancement of vaccination with respect to Central America, this was Bukele’s speech at the inauguration of a vaccination center against COVID.
El Salvador Hospital was created to function as an exclusive hospital for patients with COVID-19. Although the Government initially said it would be ready by June 2020, it has taken more than a year for the third phase to conclude; this April 12, President Nayib Bukele announced that the third phase of El Salvador Hospital, which was planned as an area with more Intensive Care Units, will today be a vaccination center.
But the president’s speech had some certain facts, false and others misleading. Today’s Diary verifies some of them:
“Phase I (of El Salvador Hospital) arrived in time before our health system overflowed” – FALSE
Phase I of El Salvador Hospital was inaugurated on June 21, 2020, for this month, COVID cases reached their peak. On that day there were 2046 active cases and 107 deaths attributed to VOCID were accumulated; that same day, the government reported 182 positive cases, the highest number of new cases in a day to date, according to the official website covid19.gob.sv.
Meanwhile, deaths attributed to “atypical pneumonia”, respiratory distress, respiratory failure and cardiorespiratory arrests that for doctors consulted by El Diari d’Avui were suspected deaths from COVID-19.
In addition, although the Government inaugurated Phase I, it took at least a month for the health personnel who were to attend the hospital to be hired.
Bukele also assured that once this phase was ready, the press would have access to the site. It never happened. Today’s Diary requested access twelve times and was denied.
You can read: What if I don’t get vaccinated?
“400 beds with everything you need (Phase I). This is how we decongest the health system” – FALSE
Since El Salvador Hospital was inaugurated, Bukele has given inaccurate data on the center’s hospital capacity. A document published on the Presidency’s website last year stated that the first phase of the Hospital del Salvador, located between pavilions 1 and Centroamericano (formerly Cifco) actually had 105 beds for the Unit of Intensive Care (ICU). Something that belied the president’s speech from his own office.
Bukele also said on April 12 that El Salvador already has 1,130 Intensive Care Units, but this figure has not been corroborated because neither the government has submitted images of the total capacity nor has the press had access to the site. to verify this.
“We have the largest number of vaccines in the region not only at the per capita level but at the total level” – FALSE
“Our world in data,” a Oxford University publication, shows the number of doses applied to people in Central America since December. The countries with the most doses applied are Costa Rica and Panama, with up to 500,000 doses delivered as of April 11 this year. Costa Rica began vaccinating in December.
Then follow El Salvador and Guatemala with up to 200,000 doses applied. Finally is Honduras, the country with fewer applications to date. There are no data from Nicaragua.
Another way to look at the evolution of vaccination in Central America is to compare the number of people completely vaccinated by country. Costa Rica leads with 213,562 people completely vaccinated, followed by Panama with 157,100; Honduras with 2,639; Guatemala with 1,639 and El Salvador which does not report data on this.
Costa Rica and Panama were the first countries in the region to start vaccinating their inhabitants. El Salvador has been administering the first doses for less than a month.
“We never got to occupy even 60% of capacity (of El Salvador Hospital” – misleading
The president released unverifiable information. The reason? There are no public data on the capacity of El Salvador Hospital nor data on the admission, graduation and deaths of COVID-19 patients treated at the site. In fact, information related to the pandemic has been reserved by the Government for up to seven years.
On March 24 this year, the Ministry of Health declared the full reservation of information related to the application and purchase of vaccines against COVID-19, thus banning access to this data for up to 5 years. Also, the “Register of booths intended for vaccination against SARS-Cov-2” will be subject to reservation for three years.
But it has not been the only information that the government has put on hold. Most official information related to the handling, purchasing and statistical data on the pandemic has been declared subject to reservation.
“We have had a rise (of cases) in recent days” – misleading
After Bukele denied any intention to promote a new quarantine, he assured that although there was a rise in cases, the curve has stabilized.
However, the numbers of new cases are constantly rising and falling, which has resulted in a graph of new cases that seems stagnant prior to the peak of July and August 2020.
In addition, new case data are updated late by the Government. It’s not uncommon for two, three or even twelve days to go by without updating. Google’s record of positive cases in the country is distorted when there are days when the official website does not report new cases: Google’s graph reports zero cases, because the government publishes the data days later. In fact, in the graph published on the official page, updated late, it does not show a single day without newly diagnosed cases.
Between 4 and 12 April, the Government did not publish data on new cases.
In December last year, researcher and academic Oscar Picardo Joao said: “It is worrying from a statistical point of view (that the data is not updated) as the epidemiological picture is disfigured.”
“The Savior inherited a precarious health system” – TRUE
In 2014, several specialists from the Rosales National Hospital reported to El Diario de Avui the lack of drugs, damage and lack of technological equipment, damage to hospital infrastructure, beds that no longer functioned and operating rooms with medical equipment. up to 15 years old.
Although facilities have been restored so far, new equipment has been purchased and staff have been hired to deal with the pandemic, complaints of a lack of medicines for cancer patients, for example , continue. The ISSS had to lend equipment last year for the operation of the Hospital del Salvador. And today, Bukele announced that health personnel will be transferred to vaccination center at El Salvador Hospital to cover the demand.