{"id":8195,"date":"2021-02-01T01:46:43","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T09:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=8195"},"modified":"2021-02-05T01:49:23","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T09:49:23","slug":"the-outside-in-and-the-inside-out-of-the-news-will-you-get-vaccinated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/health\/the-outside-in-and-the-inside-out-of-the-news-will-you-get-vaccinated\/","title":{"rendered":"The Outside In and the Inside Out of the News: Will You Get Vaccinated?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By R\u00f3mulo Mar<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Guatemala CoVid19 is again capturing the headlines as it is a highly contagious and active virus.\u00a0 As one report follows another and another, the possibility of vaccine injects people with optimism.\u00a0 Prensa Libre<\/em> (one of Guatemala\u2019s daily newspapers with national circulation) printed in its January 10, 2021 edition, “The Ministry of Public Health and Social Services has registered more than 700 infected individuals daily and hospitals’ intensive care units are at full capacity.”\u00a0 On Monday, January 11, President Giammattei r<\/u>isked closing the country again due to more than a thousand positive cases registered over the last weekend.\u00a0 On the 12th, the Health Ministry reported 1800 cases and an upward trend.\u00a0 These news reports only confirm that the situation in Guatemala, generally speaking, has become serious, steadily worsening, since the beginning of the pandemic.\u00a0 And now it’s even worse due to the complete relaxing {of the \u00a0earlier strict guidelines}.<\/p>\n

In light of this nation-wide situation, the government’s delay in taking actions necessary to procure the vaccine is incomprehensible given that its creation and availability have been front and center.\u00a0 Neighboring countries move forward with procurement and have begun vaccinating which will result in a return to risk-free normalcy in their respective jurisdictions, e.g. in Mexico and Costa Rica.\u00a0 Both countries convened vaccination regimens as early as the middle of this past December.\u00a0 There are three vaccines on the market that are highly effective and the most recommended and most available:\u00a0 the\u00a0 Pfizer, Moderna and Astra-Zeneca vaccines.\u00a0 Four countries have led in their manufacture:\u00a0 United Kingdom, Russia, China and the US.<\/p>\n

Finally on January 12th a bright light of hope was turned on<\/u>, about to become reality, with the encouraging news that the national Congress was about to approve, “authorization from the Finance Ministry of 1,500,000,000 quetzals for expenditure in 2020 by the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccine”.\u00a0 Similarly, in some departments provincial authorities have held meetings to define goals of distribution and administrative plans.\u00a0 We will hope that all this continues well, and that this large allocation doesn’t turn into loot for the coffers of the corrupt.<\/p>\n

But the fight against corona virus poses other inconveniences like the intersecting of various pieces of information, some true, some false.\u00a0 On one hand there’s the need for us to get immunized, but on the other hand, there are rumors that a microchip meant to control us is implanted via the vaccination.\u00a0 But worse yet is the version that the vaccine could disrupt DNA when first administered to its recipient.\u00a0 The only thing missing is for them to invent a tale that this invasive virus is part of a conspiracy by Elon Musk to colonize the planet Mars.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 The situation is such that the great majority of our compatriots remain in limbo, very confused and undecided.\u00a0 Either way the fear is great.\u00a0 Either we infect ourselves or we submit to being under the control of the powerful.\u00a0 A grand dilemma.\u00a0 And what some say has to be added in, is that in some cases, reactions to each vaccine type are severe, which creates even greater fear.\u00a0 How complicated are our societies!!<\/p>\n

In the case that we have a run of good luck and finally the long-awaited immunization is available to us, it will be worth remembering that Giammattei government has announced that, “The prioritized groups to receive the first doses are:\u00a0 health care personnel (public and private) rescue workers, teachers, public security, general population 60 and over, and the most vulnerable (between 18 and 60 years of age).”\u00a0 Also, the general student population ought to be considered so that education goes on without further setbacks.\u00a0 And according to this same administration, the vaccine against CoVid19 that will be acquired could cover 8.4 million\u00a0 Guatemalans this year.\u00a0 So what about the other 12 million people?\u00a0 Why is an effort not made to cover the entire population?\u00a0 I fear that this policy will create a new form of social discrimination with the vaccinated stigmatizing those who are not.<\/p>\n

To conclude not everything looks negative.\u00a0 There is another small piece to the story and it’s positive. Authorities have indicated that the immunizations will be free of charge.\u00a0 So, fine, yet they will be purchased with the peoples’ money, right?\u00a0 Finally, this question keeps coming up for me:\u00a0 given the remote possibility I am lucky enough that the vaccine is offered to me will I get vaccinated? \u00a0\u00a0Yes, absolutely.\u00a0 But I would wait until the last moment, not because I don’t believe in it, rather because I’ve always been reticent about medicines.\u00a0\u00a0 And I want there to be enough for everyone.\u00a0 And what about you? Do you think they will actually immunize us as part of a trial?\u00a0 Dystopia is accentuated for us.<\/p>\n

R\u00f3mulo Mar is an author and the founder of the video channel <\/em>Letras En Director and the print newspaper <\/em>El Revisor.\u00a0 In 2018 through the Chiquimula local government declared him “The honorable cultural hero of the Department of Chiquimula”.\u00a0 He has published eight books, two are poetry, two are short stories and four are novels.<\/em><\/p>\n

The previous article was originally published in\u00a0<\/b>gaZeta<\/b><\/a>, a nonprofit, lay, nonpartisan digital media source open to all opinions. The original article can be read in Spanish at this link: https:\/\/gazeta.gt\/noticias-reversibles-te-pondras-la-vacuna\/\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By R\u00f3mulo Mar In Guatemala CoVid19 is again capturing the headlines as it is a highly contagious and active virus.\u00a0 As one report follows another and another, the possibility of vaccine injects people with optimism.\u00a0 Prensa Libre (one of Guatemala\u2019s daily newspapers with national circulation) printed in its January 10, 2021 edition, “The Ministry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[453,429],"tags":[2724,2723,2722],"class_list":["post-8195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frontpage-en","category-health","tag-coronavirus-guatemala-en","tag-vaccines-giammattei","tag-vaccines-guatemala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8198,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8195\/revisions\/8198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}