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Bloomberg
Venezuela is restricting Covid-19 shots to people with a state loyalty card, effectively excluding many government opponents from getting vaccinated.
When the country began inoculating its elderly population, it said it was selecting recipients from a registry used by the Nicolas Maduro administration to keep tabs on voter loyalty and grant state subsidies.
While all Venezuelans have a national ID card, they haven’t all registered for the state loyalty card known as the Carnet de la Patria, which is disproportionately held by people who depend on state aid and who are more likely to be loyal to the Maduro government. The use of the registry has been criticised by medical experts, NGOs and the opposition, since the database of 20 million people doesn’t cover the whole population of 28 million.