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The Undersecretary of Health, Iris Cardona, assured this Monday that to carry out the vaccination against COVID-19 through appointments at the Pedrín Zorrilla coliseito, in San Juan, “it is difficult”, although he anticipated changes in the logistics that the National Guard of Puerto Rico (GNPR).
Since the opening of the first regional immunization center last week, an average of 600 health workers are treated per day, but a significant number of people are excluded, which the official said “should not happen”.
That’s why dozens of people have chosen to spend the night outside the coliseito since the day before the facility opened to access the vaccine. In addition, long lines of cars have formed on the Las Américas Expressway and other roads leading to Pedrín Zorrilla. According to Cardona, this surprised them.
“Although 1,000 vaccinations per day were planned in that year, the desire to get (the vaccine) quickly was greater than expected. The operation within Pedrín Zorrilla is going very well, they have 20 vaccination tables, they have to respect the physical distance measures “Cardona explained on WKAQ – 580 AM. “The vaccination process is very technical, it has to be orderly, comply with everything that has been agreed and therefore it seems to flow slowly.”
When asked why there is no appointment system, she indicates that these kinds of measures are not easy in a large-scale vaccination operation. He also ruled out calling doctors based on their license number, but said that “we are going to improve these processes”.
He stated that Pedrín Zorrilla is not the only vaccination center, as 107 health facilities administer the vaccine, although he said that citizens can not only go to these places but wait to be summoned.
“There is an order and each of these facilities started with the doctors and will open soon to peripheral health workers”, moving forward.
Cardona also said the GNPR will open another regional vaccination center this week in Caguas and later in Arecibo.
However, He did not explain why they were slow to open them, since they had the fridges ready to store vaccines in these regional centers since the beginning of the month..
According to the official, more than 35,000 health workers have been vaccinated against COVID-19 so far in Puerto Rico. However, Health needs thousands of additional vaccines to complete the vaccination of health workers in Puerto Rico.
“Federal government commitment to Puerto Rico is to deliver approximately 30,000 vaccines every week for the next four weeks. That brings us to the end of January and that goal must be reached. In addition, there is also the pledge of 11,000 weekly doses which are vaccines arriving directly to Walgreens in Puerto Rico impacting long-term care facilities for the elderly, where we have a population of 40,000 and more than 1,600 facilities where to deliver it vaccine, ‘the official said.
Cardona also explained that next Monday, January 4, distribution of the second dose for people who have already been vaccinated will begin. This process will run in parallel with that of the administration of the first dose.