From the capacity of El Salvador Hospital to the advancement of vaccination in Central America, this was Bukele’s speech at the inauguration of the COVID vaccination center.
El Salvador Hospital was created to function as an exclusive hospital for patients with COVID-19. Although the Government initially said it would be ready in June 2020, more than a year has passed for the completion of the third phase; On April 12, President Nayib Bukele announced that the third phase of El Salvador Hospital, which was planned as an area with several intensive care units, will today be a vaccination center.
But the president’s speech had some true, false and misleading facts. El Diario de Hoy checks some of them:
“Phase I (of El Salvador Hospital) arrived just in time for our health system to overflow” – FALSE
Phase I of El Salvador Hospital was inaugurated on June 21, 2020, for that month, COVID cases reached their peak. On that day, there were 2,046 active cases and 107 deaths attributed to COVID; On the same day, the government reported 182 positive cases, the highest number of new cases in a day to date, according to the official website covid19.gob.sv.
Meanwhile, deaths attributed to “atypical pneumonia”, respiratory distress, respiratory failure and cardiorespiratory arrest were increasing in death records, which for doctors consulted by El Diario de Hoy were suspicious deaths of COVID-19.
In addition, although the Government inaugurated Phase I, it took at least a month for the medical staff to follow the hospital to be hired.
Bukele also assured that once this phase is over, the press will have access to that place. It never happened. El Diario de Hoy requested access twelve times and was denied.
You can read: What happens if I don’t get vaccinated?
“400 beds with everything you need (phase I). This is how we decongest the health system ”- FALSE
Since the inauguration of El Salvador Hospital, Bukele has provided inaccurate data on the center’s hospital capacity. A document published on the Presidency’s website last year stated that the first phase of El Salvador Hospital, located between pavilions 1 and Centroamericano (formerly Cifco), actually had 105 beds for the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Something that denied the president’s speech in his own office.
Likewise, Bukele assured on April 12 that El Salvador already has 1,130 intensive care units, but this figure has not been confirmed, as neither the government presented images with full capacity, nor did the press have access to the site for when verifying.
“We have the highest number of vaccines in the region not only at the per capita level, but also at the total level” – FALSE
“Our World in Data,” an Oxford University publication, shows the number of doses applied to Central American residents since December. The countries with the most doses applied are Costa Rica and Panama, with up to 500,000 doses delivered by April 11 this year. Costa Rica began vaccination in December.
Then El Salvador and Guatemala follow with up to 200,000 doses applied. Finally, there is Honduras, the country with the lowest demand so far. There is no data for Nicaragua.
Another way to analyze the evolution of vaccination in Central America is to compare the number of people completely vaccinated by country. Costa Rica leads with 213,562 fully vaccinated people, followed by Panama with 157,100; Honduras with 2,639; Guatemala with 1,639 and El Salvador who do not report data on this.
Costa Rica and Panama were the first countries in the region to start vaccinating their inhabitants. El Salvador administers the first doses in less than a month.
“We never got to occupy even 60% of capacity (at El Salvador Hospital” – DECEITABLE
The president released unverifiable information. The reason? There are no public data on the capacity of El Salvador Hospital and there are no data on the hospitalization, discharge and deaths of COVID-19 patients treated on the spot. In fact, pandemic information has been reserved by the government for up to seven years.
On March 24 this year, the Ministry of Health declared the full reservation of information related to the application and purchase of vaccines against COVID-19, thus prohibiting access to these data for up to 5 years. Likewise, the “Register of SARS-Cov-2 vaccination booths” will be reserved for three years.
But it was not the only information that the government put in place. Most official information related to handling, procurement and pandemic statistics has been declared confidential.
“We have had an increase (in cases) in recent days” – misleading
After Bukele denied any intention to promote a new quarantine, he said that although there had been an increase in cases, the curve had stabilized.
However, the number of new cases is constantly increasing and decreasing, resulting in a diagram of new cases that seems stagnant before the peak in July and August 2020.
In addition, data on new cases are being delayed by the Government. It is not uncommon for two, three or even twelve days to pass without being updated. Google’s record of positive cases in the country is distorted when there are days when the official page does not report new cases: the Google chart reports zero cases because the government publishes the data days later. In fact, in the chart published on the official page, updated late, not a single day appears without newly diagnosed cases.
Between April 4 and 12, the government did not publish data on new cases.
In December last year, researcher and academician Oscar Picardo Joao said: “It is statistically worrying (that the data is not up to date) because the epidemiological picture is disfigured.
“El Salvador has inherited a precarious health system” – TRUE
In 2014, several specialists from the Rosales National Hospital reported to El Diario de Hoy the lack of medicines, the deterioration and lack of technological equipment, the deterioration of the hospital infrastructure, the beds that were no longer functioning and the operating rooms with equipment up to 15 years old.
Although facilities have been renovated so far in this government, new equipment has been purchased and staff have been hired to participate in the pandemic, and complaints about the lack of medicines for cancer patients, for example, continue. ISSS had to provide equipment for the operation of El Salvador Hospital last year. Even today, Bukele announced that medical staff will be transferred to the vaccination center at El Salvador Hospital to meet the demand.