Helen Hernandez, Oicanadian:

Health workers walk in the street during a door-to-door drive to vaccinate residents against COVID-19 in La Paz, Bolivia (REUTERS/Manuel Claure)

The determination also provides that “Once the declaration of a Health Emergency is over, the presentation of that card will be requested again” as well as the negative PCR test.

But nevertheless, the requirement of the document will not apply for health care, education, access to markets and interprovincial transportation, nor for procedures in identification, police, judicial, financial services in addition to military recruitment.A health worker sprays disinfectant during a public demonstration of measures against the coronavirus (REUTERS / Manuel Claure)

The Government declared a Health Emergency at the end of last year when the fourth wave showed an increase in cases and ordered that from January 1 the vaccination card was a requirement for carrying out procedures in addition to entering public and private places.

This caused the first protests from some social sectors related to the ruling party and other religious ones who considered that the mandatory requirement of the card violated their right not to be vaccinated with assertions that in their opinion validated their position.

Thus, the health authorities proposed a first postponement of the card requirement, until January 26, under the argument of avoiding crowds at the vaccination points.

The Minister of Health mentioned that the requirement of the document “has fulfilled its objective” and that since the beginning of the year “more than a million doses of vaccines have been applied” since there has been an increase of 160.5% in immunization tasks.

But nevertheless, The day before, there were frictions between social groups opposed to vaccination and the Police in cities such as El Alto, neighboring La Paz, and in the south of Cochabamba, in which even the security forces had to use tear gas.Health Minister Jeyson Auza places the first dose of the vaccine against covid-19 at a vaccination point in La Paz (EFE) to the Vice President of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca.

Auza, who until recently had been firm against those groups that even demanded his resignation, stressed that the suspension of the card is “to preserve the safety of the population against certain groups that do not accept to be vaccinated, creating sources of contagion.”

Bolivia is going through a fourth wave of infections that has exceeded the daily historical records of transmissions, reaching more than 14,000 cases, although with a fatality rate of 0.6 percent.

The country has accumulated 20,377 deaths and 774,227 confirmed cases since the arrival of the pandemic in March 2020, while 143,261 are the infections that remain active.

Infections began to increase in recent weeks, before which the Executive declared a health emergency and recently confirmed the presence of the omicron variant in Bolivia.

(With information from EFE)

https://oicanadian.com/bolivia-yielded-to-pressure-from-anti-vaccine-groups-and-suspended-the-requirement-for-a-health-pass-in-public-places/