MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires health minister warns of possible new, milder covid-19 wave

Quirós and Vizzotti insist people need to take a new dose of a COVID-19 vaccine

Buenos Aires City Health Minister Fernán Quirós Wednesday warned the recent increase in covid cases might be heralding “the beginning of a new wave.”

The official insisted the pandemic was not over and explained it has mutated. “This is probably the beginning of a new wave of mild cases for two reasons: the degree of vaccination and hybrid immunity, that is, having been vaccinated and having gone through the disease,” the minister pointed out.

Quirós also said he foresaw that by the last quarter of 2022, the pandemic will cease to be considered as such and will become a mere circulation of a virus. “This year we are going to leave this transition zone to just another virus circulation,” Quirós said in a radio interview, during which he insisted on the application of vaccines to combat the virus and explained that the first doses have been losing their effectiveness.

“The first generation of vaccines has lost effectiveness and prevents very little contagion, that is why we need a new generation of vaccines and that people get vaccinated. These vaccines that we have now are very important to prevent serious disease, but they are not as useful to prevent contagion,” Quirós said.

Earlier this week, Federal Health Minister Carla Vizzotti said that the National Immunization Commission will analyze applying a first vaccine booster to children aged 3 to 11 and the second to those aged 12 to 17. “By the end of this week we will have news,” she said.

Vizzotti recalled that currently “all people who received the vaccine more than 4 months ago, over 18 years of age, must receive the booster,” -or fourth dose- but only four months after the previous injection.

Argentina's council gathering health ministers from all 24 districts plus that of the national government is monitoring the Chilean experience, which consisted of applying the Chinese-developed Sinovac drug to children up to 11 years of age.

Sinovac is based on the same inactivated-virus principle of Sinopharm's vaccine used in Argentina. Chilean officials are now giving boosters with a messenger RNA antidote.