QCOSTARICA – Given the low influx of people over 20 years of age to vaccinate, some Health Areas such as in Tibás (San José), Santa Bárbara (Heredia), and in Zarcero (in Alajuela), they are already vaccinating people 12 years of age and over.
They are doing it as part of their contingency plans to take advantage of available vaccines, and because in some of those places, such as Tibás, the influx of people from other age groups decreased.
The population aged 12 years and over, with and without risk factors, was included in the vaccination groups since June 1 by the National Commission of Vaccination and Epidemiology (CNVE), of the Ministry of Health.
This does not mean that all 105 health areas and more than 1,000 Ebáis of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) are vaccinating this group.
The vaccination of this group depends on the availability of vaccines in each area, and on the progress registered in each age group of the places where they are vaccinated.
Still, the CCSS, from the central level, has not issued a guideline authorizing open vaccination for this group.
However, for months that institution has had a manual that indicates to the Health Areas that they can activate a contingency plan if the vaccination speed decreases in certain groups.
For this reason, parents or guardians of minors should continuously check every day and even several times a day, the information published by the official CCSS media and their health center, to know when they can have their children vaccinated.
They should also take note that public hospitals opened vaccination posts to people, with or without risk factors, from any part of the country, while health areas only vaccinate those in their area of management.
Other points of “open” vaccinations are also ongoing, such as that in Puerto Caldera today, August 5.
According to the official and public report of the CCSS, in Health Areas where progress is recorded by age groups, vaccination in minors between 12 and 19 years has reached 33% in the application of the first dose, according to the data to August 2.
In people between 20 and 39 years old, the advance with the first dose is 49%, and 4% in the application of the second, in those between 40 and 57 years old, the advance of 70% in the first dose and 6% in the second.
The CCSS recalls the importance of this vaccine, especially at a time when the delta variant, a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, is circulating in the country.
Hospitals like San Carlos, in Alajuela, are saturated with covid patients.
This Wednesday, 85% of the people hospitalized there in the covid unit are not vaccinated, despite the fact that in that region there is enough vaccine availability, reported its medical director, Édgar Carrillo Rojas.
