Dozens of Mexican teens were taken by bus to California on Thursday to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Mexico has resisted vaccinating minors between the ages of 12 and 17, pending the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO) and following its recommendation to focus on older adults, who were considered to be more vulnerable to it. coronavirus.
So a group from San Diego, along with San Diego County, stepped in to help their neighbor.
The pilot program in San Diego aims to vaccinate 450 teens ages 12 to 17 before it ends in late December. The Tijuana teens were chosen by Mexican social service organizations, including those that work with the children of parents deported from the United States.
The effort comes as Mexico begins distributing vaccines to minors in various parts of the country this month, including Baja California, where Tijuana is located. But only young people ages 15 to 17 are eligible for the vaccine.
About 150 minors were taken to the Mexican consulate in San Diego on Thursday, where San Diego County nurses administered the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19.
The county donated the doses. The youth will return in three weeks for the second dose.
All teenagers have a US visa or passport, but they were unable to come to the United States earlier to get vaccinated because there was no adult who could cross the border with them, said Carlos González Gutiérrez, the Mexican consul in San Diego.
Adrián Medina Amarillas, the Baja California health secretary, celebrated the work.
“In Baja California we are in the third wave of cases,” he said. “There is no doubt that (this program) is going to help us.”
The program will be evaluated in early 2022, and the authorities will then decide if it is necessary to continue with it.
Two weeks ago, the United States fully reopened its borders, and Mexican officials see the vaccination program for minors as a measure that will help ensure that the border remains that way. Border businesses were affected by the 18-month shutdown.
About 80% of the adult population of San Diego County and the state of Baja California, bordering California, have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
The first mass vaccination of Mexican minors took place last month at the Texas border, when more than 1,000 minors from the border state of Coahuila were bussed to Eagle Pass, where they received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. which was administered by members of the Texas National Guard. Young people between the ages of 12 and 17 are the children of maquiladora workers.
In May and early June, more than 26,000 Baja California maquiladora workers were vaccinated at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego.
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