Mexico says it’s okay to get less Pfizer vaccine at this time

MEXICO CITY (AP) – President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Sunday his government had accepted a UN proposal to delay shipments of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to countries like Mexico that had outbound purchase agreements , in order to get more doses to poorer countries more quickly.

López Obrador said the delayed shipments would be compensated later.

“Either way, that won’t change our plan, as we are already researching other vaccines,” said López Obrador, referring to the AstraZeneca vaccine as well as the Chinese CanSino and Russian Sputnik V vaccines, neither of which ‘has been approved for further use. “We are going to have enough vaccines.”

Mexico has so far received nearly half a million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and has used almost all of them.

López Obrador criticized richer countries for storing large amounts of vaccines but not using them.

“We are going to have more authority and rights than those who receive the vaccines and don’t administer them, who keep them frozen, as happens in some countries in Europe,” said López Obrador.

Vaccination teams of frontline healthcare workers in Mexico have administered around 463,000 vaccines so far, well below the total of 750,000 of these workers nationwide, each of which will need two doses.

Mexico released its second day of more than 20,000 coronavirus infections on Saturday, suggesting an outbreak in a country already struggling in many areas with overflowing hospitals.

There were 20,523 new confirmed cases on Saturday, after 21,366 infections were reported on Friday. As of Sunday, 11,170 new cases were confirmed. Reports normally decline on weekends, so the coming week could bring even higher numbers.

Authorities reported 1,219 deaths on Saturday, which was a near-record for one day, and 463 deaths on Sunday.

Mexico has now recorded more than 1.64 million infections in total and recorded more than 140,000 deaths to date in the pandemic. With the country’s extremely low testing rate, official estimates suggest the actual death toll is closer to 195,000.