Mexico’s President expects to conclude vaccination against Covid-19 by October

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced this Tuesday, May 18, an expansion of vaccination points to conclude the immunization of the entire population next October.

“We want to finish the vaccination by October, well before winter begins. That is the general plan,” he said in his morning press conference at the National Palace together with health authorities.

The President said that “more brigades are being formed and more vaccination centers will be installed to be able to fulfill this purpose of finishing in October all the vaccinations.”

According to the Government’s vaccination plan presented in December last year, which has been modified according to the arrival of doses, it was foreseen to conclude in March 2022 with the youngest children.

With 126 million inhabitants, Mexico has administered 23,301,884 doses from different laboratories, and a total of 10,652,500 people have completed their vaccination schedule.

The vaccination program contemplates adults over 60 years old, adults, between 50 and 59 years old, pregnant women, medical personnel, and educational staff.

López Obrador said that in May, the vaccination of teachers will be completed, to allow them to return to classrooms, closed since March 2020, and that people between 40 and 49 years of age will begin in July.

“Fortunately, things are going well. It is not yet possible to claim victory, but it is already very evident that the number of infections decreases, and most importantly, the number of deaths,” said the president.

Mexico reported only 52 new deaths and 822 infections, bringing the number of deaths to 220,489 and the number of confirmed cases to 2,382,745 since the beginning of the pandemic.

According to Johns Hopkins University, with these data, it is the country with the fourth most deaths, behind the United States, Brazil, and India, and the fifteenth in terms of the number of infections.

At the press conference, the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, in charge of vaccine procurement, said that the country would receive 34 million new vaccine doses during June, the same number of doses received in the last six months.

Mexico is applying the American Pfizer/BioNTech, the British AstraZeneca, the Russian Sputnik V, and the Chinese CanSino and Sinovac.