Uruguay’s president hopes his country will be “among the first” to open borders

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, stated that he hopes that his country will be “among the first” to open its borders when it achieves “herd immunity” and that the world will conduct a large vaccination campaign.

“My dream, and what I will strive for, is for Uruguay to be among the first countries to open its borders. We need the borders,” he said in an interview with the local El País newspaper published on Sunday.

Although he did not venture a specific date, he stressed that he hopes that this will occur “as soon as possible” and detailed that his government is in a “very interesting and productive” exchange with the Honorary Scientific Advisory Group (GACH) on how the vaccination of certain people or the progress of vaccination means that these people may enter the country.

“There is an obviously unexpected effect here, but one that will remain after this whole event is over: which countries are responsible, which ones have a certain sanitary level, which ones acted in a certain way during the pandemic,” he said.

“And if we are among the best, this will have a positive outcome. I have no doubt about that. Good pandemic management -which is what we must exercise in terms of health issues- will have a positive subsequent result,” he continued.

Likewise, he stressed that his country secured a significant number of vaccines due to the fact that Uruguay is “among the best” in the management of the pandemic and also because of “relevant contacts” that enabled the country to secure the doses.

The Uruguayan president pointed out that he considered being the first citizen to be immunized last Monday when vaccination campaigns began with the Chinese Sinovac doses, but dismissed the idea given that the surveys on the population’s intention to be immunized were positive.

“Had the vaccination intention surveys been very low, maybe I would have taken that step to reassure people. I thought I would be the first Uruguayan to be vaccinated. I always thought so. And then I said ‘no, it seems more logical to me when it is truly my turn and with whatever vaccine I get’. It seems more Uruguayan to me, more reasonable,” he said.

Over 72,000 people have already been administered the first CoronaVac dose, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Public Health, which reflect lower rates than those expected by the authorities.

Vaccination centers opened their doors last Monday to administer the 192,000 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine to police, military, firefighters, teachers and workers of the Institute for Children and Adolescents (INAU) under 60 years of age.

Healthcare workers will begin to be vaccinated as of next Wednesday, when the first doses of the US Pfizer vaccine are expected to reach Uruguay.

Uruguay, which is the last country in South America to start vaccinating its population, has registered 63,010 infections (8,190 active, 83 of which in intensive care) and 645 deaths since March 2020.