In late 2019 and early 2020, news of the spread of a new virus terrified the entire world population by the speed at which international organizations alerted that the virus was spreading.
In the absence of an immediate solution to stop the disease, all countries decided to take drastic measures, including incarceration and strict mobility restrictions for citizens to control the transmission of the coronavirus, and pinned all their hopes on a vaccine to end it. make to death. disease.
In October of this year, the Dominican government signed an agreement with British biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to acquire 10 million doses of its candidate vaccine against Covid-19, AZD1222, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford.
However, the American laboratory Pfizer, which works with the German biotechnology company Biontech, was the first to have an approved vaccine that is already being introduced in the United States and England.
Given the Dominicans’ doubts about when it will arrive and what the vaccine will be distributed in the country, President Luis Abinader assured that the Dominican Republic will be one of the first to receive the vaccine when it is available to other countries.
The president said the country is registered in all vaccines under treatment.
“What you can be sure of is one of the countries that will have the vaccine first, that we have already prepared the logistics, just wait for it to be available to other countries,” said the head of state, speaking after giving of the first piezo of the Teleperformance call center expansion work.
He said that “there are two vaccines pending, those from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, we are all enrolled … we are all there to serve you.”
He guaranteed that the Ministry of Health has prepared the logistics for how the vaccine will be distributed upon arrival in the country.
“The Ministry of Health has already prepared its logistics, I am going to ask the (health) cabinet to hold a press conference to report all logistics at a national level on how the vaccination will go,” said Abinader. He assured that only two countries have started using the vaccine, which is where those labs originated, but regardless, there are still many that have yet to be confirmed by the regulatory authorities.
President Abinader said that while the number of cases of people infected with the coronavirus has increased, the disease is still under control.
Increase in cases
The president said the measures imposed by the government are to prevent. “These measures are actually preventative because we still have … because even though infections are up one percent, it’s still under control, what we want is to avoid running to the norm”
He called on the population to cooperate with the authorities and to continue to comply with health measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
“That’s why we ask you … we know that these detentions are hateful, the least we want is us, the armed forces and the police don’t want to be on the streets, they are tired too, just like the Dominican people, but they are coming . … we are leaving and the Dominican people have made a great effort, what we are asking of them is that we are going to make an extra effort to get out of this pandemic, which we are going to do next year, “he said.
A journalist asked the president whether granting the grace of free transit on 24 and 31 to 1 a.m. would not create conflict between the police and people in a state of intoxication, to which the president replied: ‘we’re just talking about two days is the 24th and 31st so that they can go to the family’s house to spend it with their family, but remember that it is always until 6pm that the sale of alcohol is allowed ” .
He said that with this new provision, the government aims to allow families to share, but always with the required distance. “We ask you… why do we have to have that balance in which they can enjoy with their family but at the same time hold that there is that distance, we are going to try to achieve that balance, I ask the Dominican people, in which we can have that balance that they can be together with their loved ones, together with their family, but at the same time with the necessary social distance, ”he stated.
Worldwide cases of Covid-19 rose to 72.5 million yesterday, after 359,000 infections were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the past 24 hours, according to information from the EFE agency.
Knowing more
Thousands of lives
President Abinader said at the signing of the agreement on Oct. 30 that with the advent of the vaccine, the country would save thousands of lives by being one of the first to receive it.
US $ 8 million
While the vice president Raquel Peña said the latest investment will not be available until the vaccine is approved, but they nevertheless already had a commitment to make an initial payment worth $ 8 million, “which is the great support we have from the industry. have received. private “.