Mayors 'did not jump the jab queue'

HUSBAND and wife mayors vaccinated months ahead of others in their age group are not guilty of abusing their position, says the prosecution service, which has closed its file on their case.

Els Poblets’ leader Carolina Vives and her recently-resigned counterpart in El Verger, Ximo Coll – who are married to each other – came under fire in early January 2021 when they got their Covid jabs at a time when only elderly nursing home patients were getting them.

They had been on an official visit to the local sheltered accommodation for what was an historic moment nationwide – the first-ever Covid vaccines being administered – and later got a call from El Verger health centre offering them a leftover dose.

The couple always maintained they were told that these doses would not keep out of cold storage and would end up in the bin if they did not have them. According to the prosecution service, this is a faithful and reliable version of events – and they were not the only ones to be called.

Police officers were offered leftover jabs and some of them took it up, prosecutors say, and yet no inquiry was opened.

The only other person vaccinated and whose case was investigated was a ‘person linked to the GP practice’, where witness statements and other data were gathered.

“We infer that through an error in handling and preparing the doses, in addition to names which at the last minute dropped off the regional health authority list of those due to be vaccinated, various phials were left unused, whereby the persons in charge of coordinating the vaccine process opted to offer and administer these to patients in the waiting room at the time and those considered essential workers in the villages of El Verger and Els Poblets; they did this as they had not, at that moment, been given any specific instructions concerning what to do with surplus doses and fully believed they were acting in accordance with Denia hospital nursing department procedures,” the prosecution report reads.

In light of this, the board considers there is not ‘sufficient evidence’ of any hypothetical abuse of power on the part of the mayors.

“Carolina Vives and Joaquín (Ximo) Coll merely attended the health centre in El Verger upon being summoned by the medical professionals leading the vaccine process... the reason for this summons was explained to both of them, and that it was necessary to vaccinate them so as to avoid the doses being discarded.

“In light of this situation, there cannot be any question of the mayors seeking or accepting preferential benefits; simply their agreeing to receive medical treatment prescribed by professionals, without either of them having taken any action to force or provoke their vaccination, given that they were neither in the health centre at the time (when the decision was made), nor did they offer themselves specially for immunisation; rather, they attended a summons and received an injection, at which they showed serious reluctance.”

Both mayors said at the time they had argued that others who were more in need should get the leftover jabs, with Sr Coll saying he would prefer his mother, in her 80s, to have it instead of him.

He reported that the surgery staff told them they would not be able to coordinate this in time before the drugs went off.

Their jabs were on January 9 last year, and procedures for dealing with surplus doses were not drawn up until January 15.