The Department of Health changed its criteria and prioritized vaccinating those over the age of 60 and 65 before the officers of the National Police and the Civil Guard of Catalonia, as well as other groups considered essential. The decision was taken just the day before the planned device to immunize the agents was launched once the Government gave the green light to the vaccination with Astrazeneca of the 60 to 65-year-old group after a twelve-day stoppage for the occurrence of cases of thrombi caused by the virus. The device was prepared and agreed between the Health officials and the CNP and the Civil Guard to start the mass vaccination on March 25, 2021, but just the day before the ministry, after the celebration of the Interterritorial Health Council, changed the criterion and removed the prioritization of essential groups to focus on people aged 60 to 65, who had the highest risk of mortality. Until then, only essential groups under the age of 55 could be vaccinated with Astrazeneca. This is stated in the documentation to which La Vanguardia has had access from the legal case that investigates whether the Health officials committed a crime of prevarication and against the rights of workers by not vaccinating the National Police officers and the Civil Guard in Catalonia at the same pace as the Mossos d’Esquadra.
The court of inquiry 3 in Barcelona has a case open in which several officials of the Ministry of Health are charged, such as Josep Maria Argimon or Carmen Cabezas, visible faces of the vaccination campaign, who were secretary of Public Health and deputy director General of Health Promotion. This week, the Prosecutor’s Office has requested the judge to transfer to the TSJC the suspicions that the former councilor Alba Vergès was the one who gave the order to paralyze the vaccination of the National Police and the Civil Guard after finding a message provided by Argimon in which he made it clear. During the investigation, all the imputed Health officials have denied having given that order. Even so, it should be noted that a month later – on April 21 – the Ministry of Health adopted the same decision as the Government to give priority to the 60 to 65 group before the essential ones.
In Catalonia, the agents of the National Police and the Civil Guard received the first doses of the vaccines against the coronavirus later than the members of the Mossos d’Esquadra, firefighters, teachers and other groups considered essential because the Generalitat did not manage their data and had to ask for it. That delayed the process.
On February 10, 2021, Health began the immunization of essential groups after the arrival of Astrazeneca doses. In the case of the Mossos d’Esquadra and the local police, Health asked for the data and the Ministry of the Interior sent a file for each of the officials, and they were summoned via SMS in a management that those responsible they qualified as “efficient and fast”. By contrast, vaccination for the National Police and the Civil Guard was done through a slower process. Salut proposed to vaccinate them in their departments, in a grouped manner, and that they call the staff themselves. This whole mechanism was defined in several meetings. The first meeting was held at the Ministry of the Interior on March 4 and was attended by a chief inspector of the CNP’s technical service and the lieutenant colonel in charge of the personnel section of the Civil Guard, as well as health officials . A mixed formula was agreed upon. The staff would receive the doses in vaccination spaces and they would also propose other areas of their own, which had to be validated by Health, to vaccinate a large number of employees. In addition, they would send the data of the people to be vaccinated in each space so that they could be included in a census. The idea was to vaccinate them all in three days. Once the cash census has been drawn up, the dates for administering the vaccines will be set. During this process, there were malfunctions when transmitting and receiving data and with the preparation of the census, discrepancies in the lists and changes in criteria in the distribution of vaccines, such as the suspension of the administration of Astrazenca on March 12.
It was planned that the CNP and Civil Guard agents would receive the doses on March 25, 26 and 29, a month and a half after the Mossos began. The day before, March 24, everything was ready, but Salut changed the criteria. On April 27, the TSJC ordered Salut to vaccinate the police and civil guards because it considered that they had been discriminated against. Health has always maintained that the decisions were for reasons of public health.
