MEXICO .- Before José Rogel Romero became a negative symbol in the middle of the pandemic for putting his family’s vaccination before vulnerable people, the doctor was divided between the public service as director of the Medical Center “Lic. Adolfo López Mateos “and a private sanatorium ” Venice “that he founded in the State of Mexico.
“Lord Vacuna”, as he is known in networks after it was learned that he first injected the anticovid vaccine to his wife and two daughters and then ordered its public hospital staff to continue with the national plan to privilege medical personnel during the first stage of immunization.
If José Rogel Romero had respected the official calendar, his people would still be far from receiving the doses (until April or May) because after the health personnel the elderly, the hypertensive, diabetics and then the rest of the population.
Did not and someone found out. There was a chain of rumors that even involved the Army because it was said that the benefited family had been that of a military man and the case reached the ears of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, according to the president himself narrated in one of his morning press conferences where he acknowledged the fact.
“Don’t skip the line,” he said. “We do not want influentialism,” he added about an old practice in Mexican public life in which a person is favored by the relationship he maintains with another who occupies a position public or some position of power, so that he obtains concessions or privileges.
José Rogel Romero was finally suspended from office while an investigation is being carried out amid the scandal. He was thus only left with the work of his private clinic where he offers consultations of general medicine, nutrition oncology, ophthalmology, oncology, cardiology , as well as general, plastic and bariatric surgeries.
The local Ministry of Health reported that from now on “it will reinforce the filter for registering candidates to receive the vaccine” and left open the challenge for the entire country: how to stop influentialism, Nepotism and cronyism as a constant and repetitive practice throughout the country.
The story of “Lord Vaccine” was preceded and preceded other irregularities in the application scheme that overshadowed the good news of the vaccine that began in December and that has been a hope in the midst of the spikes in infections and deaths in the winter season.
THE PROGRESS After England gave the green light for the application of the Pfizer vaccine against COVID – 19, Mexico followed in his footsteps at the end of the year. The English also authorized AstraZeneca and here the same was done without complications because the country had signed purchase agreements with all the laboratories competing for the vaccine.
The AstraZeneca formula for which Mexico will pack 77. 4 million doses in agreement with Argentina, where the active principle will be produced. Instead, progress has been with Pfizer requiring a second dose after 21 days.
By the end of January —just when there are more spikes of infections— doses from this laboratory will continue to be received until reaching 1.4 million, according to official data.
In the first week of 2021 were placed 3, 000 vaccines in CDMX, Querétaro, State of Mexico, Morelos, Hidalgo and Coahuila. The president explained that the 11 of the arrival of almost half a million doses would be expected to be distributed in 27 states of the country whose airports they will arrive directly at, if nothing fails with Pfizer which has had delays all over the world.
Particularly the Pfizer vaccine must be at temperatures below 70 degrees below zero and, therefore , the Mexican government determined that the population must go to specific points where it will be kept under refrigeration, applied and protected by the military in many cases.
Different logistics will be had for the antigen of the Chinese-Canadian laboratory CanSino, with which Mexico has established an agreement to the reception of eight million doses this month that do not require a second application or cold storage.
The vaccination brigades will be made up of 12 people: four social promoters, two from the health sector, four from the armed forces (three from the Ministry of National Defense and one from the Navy) as well as one or two volunteers, in addition to the National Guard.
López Obrador said this Tuesday that by the end of March “all the elderly in the country will be vaccinated to make way for chronically ill under 60 years and teachers in states where the traffic light is green. ”
As is the case throughout the world, the first group contemplated have been or doctors, nurses, orderlies, cleaners and anyone who is on the front line against the disease that add up to some 750, 000 in all the country. All this in theory because, day by day by day, the battle is waged against practices like Lord Vaccine.
THE SHADOWS Ana Paola de Cosío endured several months. Assigned to the covid area at the Hospital de Pediatría “Silvestre Frenk Freund”, of the Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI in the Mexican capital, she hoped to be one of the first to receive the anticovid dose, but days passed and neither she nor other colleagues appeared in the vaccination lists.
Fed up with the risk, she started the year with her resignation and something else: a video on social networks that became popular and caught the attention of the authorities.
“Now it turns out that we do not appear in the vaccination lists, when there are administrative personnel who are receiving the vaccine arguing that they are in charge of covid teams, but they never get involved and are never exposed”, She said.
According to the version of the pediatrician and endocrinologist, she was assigned again to the respiratory area without being vaccinated and when she refused they threatened to fire her for abandoning her job. That is why he came forward.
“I have decided to resign due to inequity, the gandalism of the authorities,” he explained on Twitter.
The Mexican Institute of Social Security, the institution to which the Hospital Siglo XXI belongs, responded that Dr. Cosío “was not integrated into Covid teams since last October” and For this reason, it was planned that she would be vaccinated in the first days of this month.
Thus the versions of the doctor and the authorities were opposed.
In the field of play not everything has gone well with the first applications. In Coahuila, the IMSS recognized that 23 workers of more than 1, 000 workers who received the covid vaccine – 19 developed by Pfizer and BioNTech had adverse reactions. One of them, serious.
The affected doctor worked in the General Hospital of Zone number 7 of Monclova had seizures and paralysis in her hands and was diagnosed with transverse myelitis before being sent to a High Specialty Medical Unit in the neighboring city of Monterrey. Some medical versions indicate that it will have some sequelae
Although it is already stable, the exact causes of the complication are unknown.
Other situation luckier for health and unfortunate for prevention and healthy distance measures was headed by ophthalmologist Alejandro Silva, who in the past 24 in December, the day the first dose was applied, he was among the first to receive it despite the fact that he does not work directly with Covid patients; He said that he only followed orders and went to get vaccinated.
The issue did not stop there because it went viral on social networks when the doctor in Mexico City, when he took off his shirt to be vaccinated during the live television broadcast, he showed powerful muscles in the pectorals and arms. Later, he was seen on a beach without a mask or healthy distance, although they have not yet received the second dose of Pfizer.
A few days later, Hugo López Gatell the icon of the anticovid strategy, who for months has recommended staying home, keeping a distance and wearing a mask, was seen on a beach in Oaxaca in the opposite direction to his own campaign
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