The White House prevents a San Diego community from donating to Mexico the vaccines against COVID-19 that it did not use

A community in southern California wanted to share the doses of the coronavirus vaccines that were not used and were about to expire, with the Mexicans on the other side of the border, however, the federal government did not allow them.

The reasons were bureaucratic. 

The team of health officials and executives from hospitals near San Diego planned to donate the doses of vaccines

recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Mexico, but were detained by the group. working vaccines of the White House, according to the newspaper The Washington Post. 

A few months ago, medical personnel identified 10,000 near-expiration doses.

He immediately began the steps to send them to Baja California, specifically to a shopping center near the border in Mexicali. 

Image from January 2021, a hospital worker in Harlem, New York, loads syringes to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. Ken Betancur / Getty

"I contacted the White House Vaccine Task Force and they told me it was not possible

," Eric McDonald, San Diego County Chief Medical Officer, told the quoted newspaper.

The White House assures that the vaccines can only be exported by Washington.

If California, for example, distributes damaged vaccines, the federal government would be responsible.

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The authorities have said that it is also due to a problem with the transport of the doses and the guarantee that they can retain their temperature when they are handled by other agencies or governments. 

The United States has given away 200 million doses to other countries under the promise of the

to send an "arsenal of vaccines to the rest of the world."

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However, White House officials have said that vaccines in the US belong solely to the federal government and not to cities or states.

This guideline has had an impact on those who operate on the southern border, who see closely and with their hands tied, the shortage of doses on the other side in cities like Mexicali and Tijuana. 

“On the Mexican side, they begged us for help.

It's infuriating that we had to say no

, when it would have been so easy to make a difference, ”Carlos González Gutiérrez, Mexican consul in San Diego, told The Washington Post. 

Although nearly 40% of Mexicans have been fully vaccinated, health officials at the border say they are frustrated that bureaucracy prevented them from delivering their doses.

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"It is hard to believe that it is better to let the doses expire and throw them away instead of putting them to use,"

Jess Mandel, chief of pulmonary medicine and critical care at the University of California School of Medicine, told the aforementioned newspaper. in San Diego.

According to official data as of October 11, approximately 4.6% of the more than 486 million doses of coronavirus vaccines had been wasted. 

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"This rate remains low, demonstrating strong collaboration between the federal government, jurisdictions, and vaccine providers

to get as many people vaccinated as possible," said Kirsten Allen, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. .

The request is not recent and was increased in the summer when many doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines went

At the time this was happening, in India there was a wave of cases and vaccines were lacking.

For its part, the CDC has publicly highlighted that vaccines remain the property of the federal government until they are administered to the recipient of the vaccine.