translated from Spanish: Mañalich said that testing at the airport “is badly done” and “an epidemic outbreak is being built up.”

“The only defense we have, given the ineffectiveness of the confinements, is to achieve an accelerated vaccination especially of those who have been left behind and advance in the vaccination of adolescents and hopefully approve soon the vaccination with Sinovac for children between 3 and 11 years and thus have a larger population immunized.” This is how former Health Minister Jaime Mañalich said after being asked about the booster vaccine that will be applied to people who have already completed their scheme with Sinovac. According to the former secretary of state, this measure, which will begin this Wednesday with those over 55, is a way for the Delta variant to “reach the lowest possible speed.” Mañalich insisted that “borders must be prioritized” in terms of their control. And in this regard, he questioned the way in which the tests are being carried out. “The testing system at the airport is badly done. It’s a good idea to test everyone who arrives. But in an overcrowded room we have a group of people waiting for testing is building an epidemic outbreak at the airport,” he replied. “The bottom line is that the nasopharyngeal PCR technique is an obsolete mechanism, and it needs to be replaced with saliva samples, at least,” he said, adding that “the fundamental issue is the speed of sampling, that’s the narrowest part of the funnel. People who are coming in must wait in a place of potential high risk.”

Original source in Spanish