COLOMBIA

On January 13, Colombian President Iván Duque announced that the extension of the Selective Isolation with Responsible Individual Distancing nationwide until February 28. This measure provides guidelines to curbing COVID-19 in places of high, medium and low impact throughout the country, taking as a parameter the occupancy levels of intensive care units and the increases daily contagion rates as measured by positive tests. The Executive is expected to publish a decree formalizing the announcement in the Official Gazette over the next few days. 

The president stressed that the new decree will establish mobility restrictions and new control tools in the regions or municipalities with negative health indicators. The measures that provincial and municipal authorities may take include curfews, authorizations to perform non-essential tasks according to document number, and limitations on the sale of alcohol. The cities of Bogotá, Cali and Medellín have already moved ahead with the application of this type of policy.

In other news, the Ministry of Health is working to develop the National COVID-19 Vaccination Plan. The National Government has announced a series of agreements with different international pharmaceutical companies for the acquisition of 29 million vaccines during 2021. It is expected that mass vaccination will begin in February and that the first population segments to be immunized will be health workers and those over 80 years of age. Likewise, the Executive announced that it will authorize the commercialization of vaccines by private companies.