In May 2020, with most of the world’s leaders focused on managing social exclusion to avoid a sanitary collapse, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, a businessman by birth, demonstrated his vision of the market: to stay ahead of most countries in the world and invest in vaccines that were still on the initial stage of training.

“The president made the right and very early political decision to bet on the vaccine as a decision,” says Luza Miguel O’Ryan, an infectious disease specialist at the Biomedical Institute of the University of Chile and a member of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Vaccines. Immunization (CAVEI) of the Chilean Ministry of Science and Technology.

In addition to the committee, which includes O’Ryan, the government created an interagency committee on relations with vaccine developers and conducted clinical trials in Chile using five laboratories.

“A strong academic relationship has also developed between the Catholic University of Chile and Sinovac’s vaccine laboratory in China. Although there was skepticism around the world about the Chinese product, Chilean researchers had already formed this trusting relationship, ”explains O Ryan.

The first contacts began in March, immediately after the pandemic was announced. President Piñere had some of the laboratory administrators as colleagues in the doctorate he received in the United States. As of May, 11 laboratories have entered into five preliminary contracts, including prepayment, even if money was lost.

President de Piñera is a businessman who cares a lot about the economy. He soon realized the costs and benefits of these measures. He realized that the only way to avoid the economic consequences was group immunity with vaccines. And he decided to make a decision. invest in this outlet, guided by the logic of the market. Piñera has other shortcomings, but at the moment he is doing everything very well, ”says Chilean sociologist and political scientist Patricio Navia, Lusa.

Chile, with a population of 19 million, has already vaccinated 83% and two doses of 70.3% of the target population of 15.2 million, from which it hopes to achieve so-called “group immunity”.

However, according to consultant Cadem, the president’s popularity does not exceed 18%.

That’s a low figure for those who put Chile among the countries with the most vaccinations in the world, but three times higher than the tiny 6% approval recorded in January 2020, before the pandemic. This was the lowest figure for a president since the fall of the dictatorship 30 years ago.

“Sebastian Piñera is not a statesman, but an experienced businessman. He was smart enough to understand before others that the vaccine would be the exit point of the pandemic. This allowed him to recover a little, before that he made political mistakes and then, “says Luce, Chilean economist, political scientist and diplomat, Fernando Ayala, member of the Department of Strategic Development of the University of Chile and external adviser to FAO.

Before the pandemic, President Piñera took the military to the streets to contain the large-scale demonstrations that began in October 2019, defined the social situation as “war” and resisted the Constituent Assembly demanded by the protests, the analyst said. …

“But what prevented Pinera from regaining ground despite a successful vaccination campaign was his extreme selfishness in using resources to help vulnerable sectors during a pandemic. The help was small and arrived late, ”says Ayala.

In May, in the recent elections to the Constituent Assembly, the ruling parties failed to gain even a third of the vote to influence the drafting of a new constitution.

In the elections of governors from 16 regions of the country, the government won only one.

Sebastian Piñera did not support any candidate, and none of the candidates needed his support.

“Piñera is a card completely dropped from the political deck. The only title he pursues and will be able to show is the title of the president, who vaccinated and saved the Chileans from the pandemic. Otherwise, Piñera is done with history. The future could be an international court of rights person for these repressions in 2019, ”concludes Fernando Ayala.

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