The rate of vaccination in Mexico falls in the last two weeks despite the availability of doses

A woman receives the covid vaccine in Tijuana.JORGE DUENES / Reuters

The rate of vaccinations against covid-19 has slowed in the last two weeks in Mexico.

The President of the Government has recognized this Friday in his morning conference and has attributed it to the decrease in the arrival of doses to the country, but that data cannot explain the slowdown by itself, since there is a remnant of more than 10 million vaccines, if official data are taken into account: 38.6 million doses have already been administered, but the total volume of doses arriving in the country is 49.06 million.

"There is availability," said Andrés Manuel López Obrador, "but we can show that fewer vaccines have arrived."

And then he has shown a graph in which that fall is appreciated.

More information

• Mexico ships 400,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to Latin America and the Caribbean

• Baja California will have its entire population over 18 years vaccinated in 10 days

• Mexico receives Johnson & Johnson vaccines for the border from the United States

In the week of May 17-23, Mexico had 5.01 million new doses, including those that arrived and those that were released from its own laboratories.

The following week the figure increased: 5.7 million more.

Afterwards, the reduction has been significant.

In the week of May 31 to June 6, when elections were held, 3.4 million doses were received and the next two, until today, 2.8 million each.

There are vaccines, in any case, before and now.

It is the erratic speed of application that does not have an official explanation, for now.

The president was upset this morning because some media has linked these data to the proximity of the June 6 elections. He has called it "bad faith." A day-by-day scrutiny of the vaccines applied to the population from May 20 to date, presents four very marked peaks, which correspond to June 2, 3 and 4. Official reports indicate record figures in those days, with 816,380 positions on the 2nd, more than a million on the 3rd and 901,000 on the 4th. From there, the intensity has decreased.

In parallel, there is a special plan to immunize the border population with the United States, taking advantage of a shipment of 1.3 million Jannsen doses donated by that country that will be destined exclusively to Baja California. The idea is that the entire population over 18 years old is vaccinated in 10 days and the plan is progressing at a good pace, according to the Secretary of Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, who has been in charge of giving the report at the conference. The purpose is that the entire northern border of Mexico is protected to reopen as soon as possible the transit of people between both countries, an area of ​​high commercial value. The economy and health continue to go hand in hand as the major concerns derived from this pandemic.

The Government has praised the vaccination campaign in this country as one of the great achievements against the virus, which has already left 230,792 deaths and there are still more than 26,000 people with the active disease. In fact, Mexico has donated 400,000 doses to Belize, Bolivia and Paraguay and 800,000 have been sent to Argentina, as part of the agreement between the two countries to produce and package the biological.

López Obrador assured this Friday that the plans planned for the total population to be immunized in October, at least with a first dose, remain in place. And the day before, he assured that pharmaceutical companies are not owed a single peso for the purchase of biologics. The Mexican Administration has contracted more than 250 million doses with six laboratories, which means the application of the vaccine to about 130 million people. "The increase in infections is related to the weather and we do not want the rainy season and winter to come and the pandemic to activate again. We are working on that ”, he said.

Asked by a journalist about whether all the available vaccines have been used, she answered "yes, all." It is not true, since there is that remnant of 10 million, but the president has clarified that "they are in transit in the different states." In addition, he has announced that there will be a meeting with the health officials of all entities to "reinforce the vaccination plan."

Mexico City, due to its population characteristics, one of the most affected by the pandemic, remains on a green traffic light, despite the fact that some experts point out that their data could place it back in yellow.

This Friday a further step has been announced in the relaxation of the measures applied so far to control infections, increasing the capacity in certain places of leisure.

Baja California, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, the most touristic territories are on an orange traffic light, that is, high risk.

Health authorities have recommended that precautions be taken in these areas.

Nine more states have yellow.

The rest look green.

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