MEXICO CITY (AP) – President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Sunday said his government had agreed to a UN proposal to delay the dispatch of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to countries like Mexico that have the purchase agreements to speed up doses to to get poorer countries.
López Obrador said the delayed shipments would be made up later.
“It will not change our plan anyway, because we are already looking for other vaccines,” said López Obrador, referring to the AstraZeneca vaccine as well as the Chinese CanSino and Russian Sputnik V vaccines, which have not been approved for still use. “We’re going to have enough vaccines.”
Mexico has so far received nearly half a million doses of Pfizer vaccine and used almost all of them.
López Obrador criticized rich countries that stored large amounts of vaccines but did not use them.
“We are going to have more authority and rights than those who get vaccines and do not administer them, who keep them frozen, as is happening in some countries in Europe,” López Obrador said.
Teams vaccinating frontline health workers in Mexico have so far fired about 463,000 shots, far from the country’s total of 750,000 such workers, each in need of two doses.
Mexico posted its second day on Saturday with more than 20,000 coronavirus infections, indicating that there is a boom in a country already struggling with overcrowded hospitals in many areas.
There were 20,523 newly established cases Saturday, after 21,366 infections were reported Friday. On Sunday, 11,170 new cases were confirmed. Reporting usually decreases over weekends, so the coming week may bring even higher numbers.
Officials reported 1,219 deaths on Saturday, which was almost a record for one day and 463 deaths on Sunday.
Mexico has now seen more than 1.64 million total infections and so far registered more than 140,000 deaths in the pandemic. With the country’s extremely low test rate, official estimates indicate that the actual death toll is closer to 195,000.