Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica start out administering COVID-19 vaccine

Dec. 24 (UPI) — Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica became the 1st nations around the world in Latin The united states to begin administering COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday.

Mexico administered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Maria Irene Ramirez, 59, the head of the intense treatment device at Ruben Lenero Medical center in Mexico City.

“This is the very best reward that I could have gained in 2020,” she stated. “We are scared, but we have to continue to keep going because another person has to face this battle.”

The to start with doses of the German and U.S.-formulated Pfizer-BioNTech also arrived in Costa Rica and Chile with both of those nations around the world starting vaccinations shortly right after Mexico, though Argentina been given 300,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine on Thursday.

Latin The united states has come to be a hotspot for the virus with Mexico reporting 1,350,079 instances and 120,311 fatalities, Chile with 594,152 circumstances and 16,303 fatalities, while Costa Rica has 162,990 and 2,086 fatalities since the start off of the pandemic, in accordance to info collected by Johns Hopkins College.

The Mexican governing administration has mentioned it options to vaccinate all health employees by the close of the 1st quarter of 2021.

“We are heading to promise this health and fitness automobile suitable, with vaccines for all Mexicans,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador reported for the duration of a push convention Thursday. “We previously have the finances, with the money to order all the doses that are required.”

Authorities in Mexico Town lifted the pandemic notify degree in the money to its greatest level, setting up mass shutdowns with only essential organizations remaining open up.

Nonetheless, the federal government’s response has confronted criticism as it held information that indicated the cash must have locked down in early December and Lopez Obrador has refused to wear a mask and continued general public rallies all over the country.