Covid-19 : Costa Rica makes vaccination mandatory for all government employees

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The government of Costa Rica announced on Tuesday that the vaccine against Covid-19 will be mandatory for all public employees, and empowered private employers to require it for their workers.

“The National Vaccination and Epidemiology Commission approved the obligatory nature of the vaccine against Covid-19 for all public sector employees, as well as for those private-sector employees whose employers, within their internal labor regulations, have opted to incorporate said vaccination as obligatory in their work centers,” states a communiqué from the Ministry of Health.

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The mandatory nature of the vaccine will be established by a decree to be signed in the next few days.

“The Commission made the decision based on epidemiological variables such as the number of Covid-19 cases, the mortality rate of the disease, the increased circulation of the Delta variant and the high hospital occupancy, impacted to a greater extent by patients who are not vaccinated, as well as the slowdown in the influx of people to the vaccination centers to receive their first dose,” adds the official statement.

A ten-day special vaccination campaign concluded with extended hours in shopping centers, churches, companies, clinics, and other places on Sunday. Still, it did not yield the expected results since only 195,598 of the target of 500,000 first doses were reached.

At present, in this country of 5.1 million inhabitants, there are 867,000 people within the population still to be vaccinated (over 12 years old) without the first dose, of which 220,000 are minors between 12 and 17 years old; 55,000 adults over 58 years old and 592,000 people between 18 and 57 years old, according to data from the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social).

The special vaccination campaign exceeded the goal in terms of second doses since 240,494 were applied when the target was 200,000.

Since last February, the vaccine has been mandatory for the Ministry of Health employees, the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, and the Red Cross.

Last week, the authorities released the results of a study with data as of September 14, which indicates that 86.7% of the patients hospitalized in intensive care units for Covid-19 were either not vaccinated or did not have the complete vaccination schedule, while 13.2% had already received the two doses.

The study also indicated that of those hospitalized in the ward (mild or moderate condition), 57.4% had not received the first dose, 13.9% had received the first dose, and 28.7% had already received the two doses.

Authorities have insisted the population not pay attention to messages circulating in social networks and text messages with disinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines.

As of September 27, Costa Rica had 525,999 cases of Covid-19 and 6,277 deaths, and hospitals are currently at high occupancy levels with 1,372 people hospitalized, of which 451 are in intensive care.