Mexico to use US vaccines mainly on border, at resorts
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican officials said Thursday that the United States is donating one million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, which will be used primarily at the border and at resorts frequented by Americans.
President Andres Manuel López Obrador wrote on his social media accounts that US Vice President Kamala Harris told him the United States would send the vaccines, but did not say when.
Mexico's point man on the pandemic said Mexico would set priority for using the vaccine in Caribbean resorts such as Cancun, Pacific coast resorts such as Los Cabos and cities along the US border.
Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell did not say whether it was the U.S. Vaccine shipment status. Instead, he portrayed it as an economic move aimed at avoiding possible partial shutdowns in areas where the economy is based on tourism or cross-border manufacturing facilities called maquiladoras.
When asked where single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines could be implemented, López-Gatell said, "We're going to develop operational plans as we get closer to a specific arrival date for this gesture of support." Huh."
He cited the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo and the Pacific coast state of Baja California Sur as the reasons Mexican officials were considering prioritizing implementing the vaccines.
Referring to the northern border, he said, "We have the opportunity, given that this is a gesture of support by the United States, that we can coordinate (coronavirus) prevention and control efforts on both sides of the border."
The Mexican city on the border is the only way the U.S. has been able to vaccinate its population. are far behind their counterparts. But goods and people constantly move across the border.
It is unclear how the plan to prioritize resorts and border areas will play out in other parts of Mexico that have been hit hard by the pandemic. Nationwide, most Mexicans ages 50-59 have barely received their first dose of vaccines, and for those ages 40-49 the process has just begun.
Mexico has so far received 42.3 million doses of five different types of vaccine, not including Johnson & Johnson, and administered 32.8 million of those doses. This is still largely insufficient for a country of 126 million.
Mexico has suffered more than 228,000 test-confirmed deaths related to COVID-19, but even government officials acknowledge that Mexico's real pandemic death toll is much higher, Because many people have died at home or have never been tested. A preliminary analysis of more deaths suggests that COVID-19 deaths have now exceeded 350,000, giving Mexico one of the highest per capita rates in the world.