After the announcement, Rio admits that he may not comply with the children’s vaccination schedule

One day after releasing the Covid-19 vaccination schedule for children aged 5 to 11 years, the municipal secretary of Health of Rio de Janeiro, Daniel Soranz, admits the possibility of not meeting the established dates. “If there is no vaccine, obviously, the calendar will have to be postponed even further. We hope that doesn’t happen, that the ministry manages to deliver the vaccines to meet our schedule,” said Soranz.

The vaccination schedule for children between 5 and 11 years old in Rio begins on January 17, four days after the date set by the Ministry of Health for infant doses to arrive in the country.

Three days are set aside to vaccinate each age. According to the schedule, the 560,000 children in Rio de Janeiro in the age group would be immunized until February 9th.

However, the ministry plans to deliver to Rio less than 120,000 doses in the first month of 2022. “This is a calendar that we did not want to do, we wanted to vaccinate all the children in a single week. We have the installed capacity to vaccinate 130 thousand children a day. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, it would take seven days to vaccinate all our children. Unfortunately, we will not have a vaccine for this. The Ministry of Health has a vaccine delivery plan that forced us to make a calendar in four weeks, vaccinate until the month of February, which is a lot for our children who will have their vaccination postponed”, explained the secretary .

Despite the Ministry of Health guaranteeing the delivery of just over 20% of the doses needed to comply with the proposed vaccination schedule, Mayor Eduardo Paes is optimistic about the vaccination of children.

“What was our experience in promoting the calendar? We anticipate. I remember, the city of Rio was the first city to publish an adult vaccination calendar back there. I remember that we would finish on October 21st. Many people thought it was unrealistic, that it was going to be delayed. We finished in mid-August. So I want to believe, the ministry when it wants to, when it wants, when there is a political command, the ministry has already proven its capacity to deliver and make things happen,” said Paes.