La Rioja became the first province to apply an ambitious vaccination program to the workers of the factories installed in the Industrial Park.Governor Ricardo Quintela ordered a Vaccination Plan that consists of the inoculation against the coronavirus of the workers of the industrial park in their workplace.” It is an articulated work between the public sector and the private sector, in this case being the first province that goes factory by factory to vaccinate with second doses or third doses, which corresponds to all those who do not have it applied. We continue to take care of workers so that they can develop their activities in the best working conditions,” explained the Minister of Labor, Employment and Industry, Federico Bazán.
The Minister of Health of the province, Juan Carlos Vergara said that “vaccination will continue until we complete all the demand” and explained that in La Rioja 94.8% of our industrial workers have a two-dose scheme (86.95% global province) and 32.8% has a three-dose scheme (30.7% overall province). The issue has already been raised at the national level, but La Rioja became the first province to implement this vaccination plan to avoid a setback in industrial activity. It transpired in national media that businessmen, unions and even a provincial government advanced in agreements by sectors to accelerate vaccination in factories and, thus, avoid a setback in the recovery of activity. While the metallurgists of Adimra and the UOM came out with a strong campaign on social networks, the companies and the province of La Rioja carried out a survey to start last Monday a plan to apply second and third doses in the workplace.
In this way, businessmen, trade unionists and provincial officials began with a scheme that the national government has not yet validated: vaccination in factories. The request was made by the UIA with the start of the protocols of return to activity during the past year, and reiterated it last week in the face of the low amount of third doses applied. The governor of La Rioja Ricardo Quintela said that “we have a very high percentage of citizens with the two doses, about 87% and we need the third dose to protect each other from the lethality of this virus, the level of contagion is much stronger than before, so it is best to be protected.” It is a new strategy to bring the vaccine closer to our people and that there is no precedent that has been carried out in another part of the country,” he said and added that “we are taking the vaccine to places of great concurrence, that is why, in coordination with the Ministry of Industry, we began this work in the companies of the industrial park and we have already applied more than 150 doses.” Quintela thanked the workers “for the trust placed in the Ministry of Health and in the entire Government of the Province with respect to health policy.” In press statements, Tomi Karagozian responsible for the yarn 1 and yarn 2 factories of the “TN & Platex” group, said that “we are very grateful from “TN & Platex” and as industrialists of the effort made by the province, it is a unique case throughout the country and I do not see it in other provinces, there was a public-private articulation to have data on what the situation was and from that the province took care of doing a successful vaccination in our factories making our vaccination rates almost 100%.” Finally, Andrés Ekserciyan, head of the Ritex factory commented that “these actions demonstrate the commitment assumed and the joint and coordinated work that we have been doing together with the province to take care of the health of the workers. I thank the government and UNIR who worked on logistics. We hope it can be replicated nationally.” It was detailed that in order to carry out the work, a survey of the companies was carried out and from there a vaccination schedule was designed. In this way, the workers of the Hilados factories have already been vaccinated; Chilcal and Beta. While the schedule will continue in the rest of the companies during this week and next. For the vaccination, a team of Health Agents was available to tour the factories applying first, second and booster doses. This action began last Monday and is carried out in the morning, afternoon and night shifts.
