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“I remember very clearly one day when they asked us to change the information. The minister reported with a parallel system unknown to us, that first they were called by telephone, then an access code that put the totals. He was reporting these figures in the morning, before we publish the reports. April 24th, because previously the absolute value reported from Epidemiology was always lower than that reported by the minister, That day it happened that the information that was in Epivigila surpassed that reported by Mañalich. So when I had already received the database, my direct manager, Rodrigo Fuentes, told me that at the request of the minister, the last records must be deleted to make it fit, because although there could be differences, the information from Epivigila could not exceed what informed by the minister. We did not do it”.
This is part of the statement of the former head of Noncommunicable Diseases of the Ministry of Health (Minsal), Andrea Albagli Iruretagoyena, delivered on September 30 to the Public Ministry. The prosecution witness is a psychologist from the Catholic University, a Master in Public Health in Toronto, a UC Master in Epidemiology and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Toronto. Before resigning from Minsal on September 15, she went on to work in the team led by Rodrigo Fuentes, who is the head of the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Office. It is also close to the Democratic Revolution, the Frente Amplio party.
His testimony – of 21 veneers – was given in the framework of an investigation for alleged reckless dissemination of pathogenic germs in the midst of the pandemic, in which President Sebastián Piñera, former Minister of Health Jaime Mañalich, in addition to other authorities of the State portfolio, including the undersecretary Paula Daza. The diligence was carried out through Zoom by prosecutors Ximena Chong and Marcelo Carrasco.
Albagli said that she resigned from the entity because she began to do a doctorate and because “I felt ethically very uncomfortable with the way the pandemic was being handled.”
He indicated that his direct boss was initially Johanna Acevedo, former chief of Epidemiology. “Then, in mid-April, Johanna was promoted to division chief, so Rodrigo Fuentes became department head for a month and a half. Later he is replaced by the current boss, Rafael Araos “.
Regarding the day that, according to him, they were asked to match the figures, he pointed out that “this request is made by my direct leadership, but on behalf of the cabinet. That day the Gap was 30 cases, it was small. There were 30 cases of contagion no more. They ask me from the minister’s cabinet to do it again so that the value is adjusted, in quotation marks, without exceeding that reported by the minister ”.
And he continued: “For me it was very evident that this was inappropriate, that we could not do it. We receive this indication at 11.30 or 12.00. We had the (epidemiological) report ready and we were finishing it, before its publication in the afternoon, that’s when they asked us to modify the report and the database to what the minister had said. It was verbal but there are more witnesses. Everyone from the office was there, Pía Álvarez, Silvina Alvarado, Patricia Cerda, Rocío Martínez, Fabio Paredes, Mario Soto. We all shared the same space, except for two who were there incidentally. We were in the Ministry’s offices ”.
He said that “with the database I mean what is extracted from Epivigila, what is downloaded. What happened was that I rejected the request, because manipulating the database is an irregularity. The minister’s order was maintained, which was not admissible, so it was requested that they change the cut-off point of the base, that if it was unloaded at 22.00, for example, it was unloaded earlier, I do not remember well but the cut was moved by 18.00. They advanced the cut-off point until there was a value equal to or lower than that reported by the minister”.
Asked by the prosecutors regarding the reaction on April 24 to this, the psychologist said that “I know that there was an agreement between my peers, but only I verbalized it. Rodrigo Fuentes answered me that it was correct, that it was an irregularity and then he came back with a second proposal ”.
Afterwards, they asked him if there was any concern about the differences, to which Albagli replied that “only on one occasion, verbally, Johanna Acevedo stated that she was worried and seeking that this be repaired by the minister (…) I will send the emails I have about it and an image of the parallel system created by the minister (…) It came to me and I kept it for record. Neither was a system endorsed by the Department of Epidemiology. “
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He pointed out that in June he stopped going to the ministry in person, to start teleworking, and stopped working on epidemiological reports.
Suddenly, Albagli wanted to add a point in case he forgot later. He indicated that “although it is distant from our procedure, in conversations various professionals informed us that they also reported directly to the minister the injuries of the social outbreak in parallel. I knew this because they participated in a risk and information management table. At one point we made a proposal to follow up on the injuries of the social outbreak, formally by mail, but they answered us that we should not do it because the minister’s cabinet did it directly ”.
In another part of the interrogation, the professional said that “we did an analysis on the risk of dying from Covid in different people, it was found that those assigned to Fonasa were more likely to die than those who were in Isapre. I found relevant information and I report it to headquarters. A few days ago, Minister Paris said that there is information that rules out the relationship between fatality and poverty, that is not the truth, since although they are complex models subject to improvement, at least there is relevant information that suggests it, so when it is discarded , there is no information that can rule out this information. I sent that email on June 22 ”.
He also indicated that when they began to speak of plateau, new normality and safe return, these were recommendations that came from the “cabinet of the minister or undersecretary, they never came from Epidemiology, indeed, my leadership, Johanna Acevedo, never agreed, no we were on a plateau, one could not speak of a plateau ”.
He added that “the first number of recovered did not go through Epidemiology either, it was from the cabinet. They asked us to publish them, but I pointed out that it was unethical to respond to the minister’s requests since the only thing that was done was to publish the same number of people infected two weeks ago, but at the international level there was no instrument that said that was correct.
Then he went back to what happened on April 24 and said he resigned, in part, because of that episode. “When they ask us to manipulate the database, although it has not been done, a decision was made that, although it is not an administrative fault, is still reprehensible for a decision not to report everything that could be reported,” he declared. And he added that he did not resign before because he “tried to make internal changes” and that he tried to make the Epivigila base public, but it did not work.
Almost at the end of the interrogation, the prosecutors asked her about an email that she sent on April 10 to her boss Rodrigo Fuente and Minsal official Mario Soto.
“Perfect. It is understood. However, I must reiterate my objections in this regard: The definition of ‘active cases’ is built from the definition of ‘recovered’ that has been adopted in this ministry. This definition does not adhere to any indication of international organizations and its implications are not innocuous: we are erroneously communicating that all the people who have been diagnosed two weeks ago are no longer contagious and therefore are not ‘active cases’ and, as they are not This definition is precise, we contribute to the spread of the virus in those people who continue to infect after the 14-day period, “Albagli wrote in the e-mail.
And I add: “I firmly believe that we cannot publish figures thoughtlessly, for which I also communicate that if the current incidence or ‘active cases’ (which is built on the basis of a recovery assumption that we know is wrong) it will from now on be mandatory to include in the report, this is the last report in which I will participate in its writing. I will transfer this task on Monday to whoever you consider from the team to be responsible for following up ”.
Given this, the former official indicated that “what she was saying is that the minister’s decision had no basis, they insisted and that is why I wrote that email expressing my disagreement.
