Chilean government has ruled out vaccinating non-residents to prevent “covid tourism”

The Chilean authorities communicated on Wednesday that foreigners who are not residents of the country will not be vaccinated against COVID-19. They said the aim was to avoid the practice known as “covid tourism”, thereby rectifying the initial vaccination plan released by the Department of Health.

“Foreigners who are in the country with a tourist visa will not have the right to be vaccinated in Chile (…), nor those who are irregularly», Affirmed the Minister of External Relations, Andrés Allamand.

To access vaccination, which is free, you must have Chilean nationality, stay or reside in the country or, failing that, a visa application in progress, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

According to the new decree, All irregular migrants are also excluded from the vaccination process, which leaves the thousands of foreigners who have entered the northern border with Bolivia in recent weeks and who are stranded in health camps in preventive quarantine without vaccination.

“Anyone who enters Chile irregularly will not be able to normalize their situation and their reality will be particularly precarious.Added Allamand, who has been promoting a campaign for the past few days to discourage foreigners from entering Chile through unauthorized steps.

“A TOURIST PACKAGE TO OBTAIN VACCINES”

The agility with which the country leads the process of vaccination against COVID-19 against the rest of the Latin American countries has led several foreign media and many Internet users to disseminate information on how to get to Chile to obtain the vaccine.

The change in the vaccination plan was announced two days after a Peruvian television station announced that “there are a thousand ways to get vaccinated in Chile“Inform on the”Medical tourism»And link the different ways of getting there to perform the inoculation.

“The vaccination tour, which costs around $ 500, includes flights, accommodation, medical insurance and transfers”, Reported the report.

While in some Latin American countries, such as Brazil or Peru, there have been frequent saturations in hospitals and crowds to obtain oxygen reserves, Chile has become a model country in the fight against pandemic because of its ability to trace, test and immunize the population.

Chile, which adds more than 760,000 infections since March and around 20,000 deaths, vaccinated more than 1,025,580 people, mainly healthcare workers and the elderly, with doses of inoculants produced by Pfizer or Sinovac.

The country, which has also approved the AstraZeneca laboratory vaccine, committed more than 35 million doses from different laboratories and the Covax platform, promoted by the World Health Organization to guarantee universal access to the possible vaccine.

The Government’s objective is to vaccinate all people over 65 before February 19 so that the entire population at risk – the elderly, chronically ill, health workers – is vaccinated during the first quarter of 2021. The rest can get their doses for the first six months of the year.

(With information from EFE)

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