Top court orders Executive to unveil COVID-19 vaccination dates

Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski set a 48-hour deadline for Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello to announce the dates for each stage of the vaccination plan against COVID-19.

“The state’s Minister of Health is hereby requested to disclose in 48 hours the estimates for the beginning and end of the National Vaccination Operationalization Plan against COVID-19, including its different stages,” Lewandowski said in his ruling on Sunday (Dec. 13).

On Saturday (12), Lewandowski published the 93-page-long document submitted by the Health Ministry to the top court with the vaccination plan. After releasing the text, the minister—who is also rapporteur for the proceedings linked to vaccination at the Supreme Court—asked for the two actions demanding the federal government to present the immunization plan and the mandatory character of the vaccine to be removed from the agenda. They would be deliberated upon this week, the last week before the new year’s recess at the Supreme Court.

National Plan

Dubbed National Vaccination Operationalization Plan Against COVID-19, the document put together by the Health Ministry is 93 pages long and split into ten axes, which include descriptions of the target population, the vaccines already purchased by the government and the ones being researched, the efforts to make immunization operational, the logistics scheme for countrywide vaccine distribution, and the communication strategies for a national campaign.

The plan encompasses four priority groups adding up to 50 million people, which should require 108.3 million vaccine doses, including five percent losses, as everyone must receive two doses in a 14-day interval between the first and the second injection.

The first priority group, to be vaccinated as part of stage 1, is formed by health care workers (5.88 million), people aged 80 or older (4.26 million), people aged 75 through 79 (3.48 million), and indigenous people aged 18 and older (410 thousand).

Vaccines

According to the plan, the federal government has ensured 300 million doses of the vaccine against COVID-19 by means of three agreements:

– Fiocruz/AstraZeneca – 100.4 million doses by July, 2020 plus 30 million doses a month in the second half-year;

– Covax Facility – 42.5 million doses;

– Pfizer – 70 million doses (under negotiation).