It is more than an open secret, it is the subject of all
chats
.
Some of the richest Mexicans in the country spend their days asking and sharing information with their friends and acquaintances about where they can get vaccinated against the coronavirus in the United States.
Most of them are people from a vulnerable population, aged 60 and over, although not exclusively.
In San Pedro Garza García, the richest municipality in Latin America, everyone seems to know someone who managed to get vaccinated in a city in Texas or Florida.
Mexico City remains at a red light despite the drop in hospitalizations
What happens here is a mixture of hopelessness, urgency and money.
In this city of Mexico, 250 kilometers from the northern border, it is the headquarters and cradle of many of the largest companies in the country, such as the third largest cement company in the world, Cemex and the multinational conglomerate Alfa.
Here there are thousands of those who have the economic means to take the covid-19 test required to fly to the neighboring country, pay for the ticket, get to a hotel and rent a car in which they can queue up at any vaccination center that is open.
And so they are doing.
One of them is Mauricio Fernández, 70, a former mayor of San Pedro, a former senator of the country and a shareholder in some of these large companies.
Fernández shared on his social networks that he managed to get vaccinated in Los Fresnos when he was traveling with a group of friends to a Texas beach.
Through the websites of nearby counties and towns, they were informed of where vaccines had been released.
In some places they required to register online first, in others to go in person for a váucher with the next vaccination date and in others, simply try your luck by queuing outside the vaccination centers.
"They just told you that those who were in line over 65 years of age were going to vaccinate them," he says on the phone from San Pedro.
Fernández presented his Mexican passport as identification and was vaccinated.
"Very generous that Americans can include everyone who was in line, undocumented, Mexican, whatever, they weren't saying 'this yes, this no.'
The flow of foreigners getting vaccinated in Texas is such that it generated frustration among residents waiting their turn.
The general director of the local hospital system in Houston told KPRC 2 television that "if some have gone unnoticed, that is not the biggest problem we are dealing with."
The media also questioned Governor Greg Abbott on the issue, who responded in a video message to KRGV Chanel 5 saying only: "Texas vaccines are for Texas residents."
San Pedro is a municipality very close and very connected to the United States and Texas in particular, explains the current mayor of San Pedro Miguel Treviño.
“Not only geographically connected, but also culturally and in ties with family and friends.
It is a municipality where there is even a significant number of people with American nationality or with an American residence, so all these links are part of the community and the possibility of getting the vaccine in Texas is considered, as in fact has happened now, ”says Treviño .
This is a luxury that few in the country can afford.
In San Pedro, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is $ 50,935 and, according to the financial risk firm Fitch Ratings in a report published last year, it has the highest income compared to other entities in Latin America.
It was here that some of the first infections were reported in Mexico.
Sampetrians who traveled to Colorado to ski returned infected, which is why the Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell said in June that the disease “was imported from social groups with high economic and financial capacity, from wealthy social groups from the country".
Necessity has pushed Sampetrians to seek the vaccine in the US, says Fernández.
The vaccination plan of the Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is progressing slowly due to supply cuts by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and, in addition, it has been criticized for the lack of transparency regarding who has been vaccinated first.
López Obrador said that the "servants of the nation", a group of 30,000 people who promote the government's social programs, should be among the first to be vaccinated since they will participate in the vaccination campaign in the most remote places of the country, a decision that caused controversy.
This week, the Government launched a website for those over 65 to register to receive the vaccine, despite not yet having vaccines in the country, but the page presented many access problems.
"What I'm seeing is that here they are worth a damn, there is no one with the batteries in place to solve the problem, neither local nor national," says Fernández, who will seek re-election as mayor this year.
Treviño, for his part, says that among the Sampetrians “there is a bit of hopelessness regarding the lack of organization and speed that they see from the federal government.
That is something that on the one hand we understand, but that it is up to us as a municipality to coordinate, especially recognizing that the health authorities are the Federation and the State ”.