By school bus to get the vaccine at the border: Coahuila sends 1,000 children to the US

The first mass immunization of Mexican minors against the coronavirus will be done on the other side of the border. This Tuesday a total of one thousand children and adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age from the municipality of Pedres Negres will be transferred, with the support of the Government of Coahuila, to Texas to receive the first dose of Pfizer, one of the few biologicals authorized for minors. of 18 years. The Secretary of State for Health, Roberto Bernal Gómez, acknowledged that it was the maquiladora companies, with a presence on both sides of the border, that managed to donate these doses.

Contrary to the vaccination strategy of the Government of López Obrador, which does not yet allow the immunization of children under 18, the State Administration of the pristine Miguel Ángel Riquelme, has given the green light and has participated in the efforts to achieve immunization of these children, children of workers of the maquiladora companies based in the municipality like Rassini. “We are going to take the children to the Mexican checkpoint and in the Mexican checkpoint there will be buses that are circling the bridge, they are vaccinated in the United States, they are coming back and here we are going to observe them,” the state official explained. In a single day the immunization of the thousand children is expected, who will be accompanied at all times by an adult.

Bernal Gómez declined to specify the cost of biologicals and logistics, however, said that these costs will be shared between the maquiladora companies, the Government of Coahuila and the municipality. The local secretary has rejected that this initiative will confront them with the federation. “Due to logistical and economic problems, Mexico still does not authorize this (vaccination of children), but this is not bad, it is not ‘going free’ is to seek the benefit of the people of Coahuila. Mexico wins, Coahuila wins, they are immunized children, this should not cause me problems with the federation for a long time “, he argued.

Last June, the Mexican government authorized the first vaccine against covid-19 for people over 12, Pfizer, the López Obrador Administration does not provide for the immunization of minors, but just this weekend the Undersecretary of Health , Hugo López-Gatell gave views on the start of vaccination for children vulnerable to the virus. In an interview with The Day the federal official announced that one million children and adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 in Mexico are at risk for developing severe cases or dying from the virus if they receive the vaccine. López-Gatell clarified his first statements on vaccination of minors, as at first he had defended the Executive’s federal strategy of closing access to biologicals to this population group: “We must not lose sight of the fact that for every dose that is diverted to a child by legal action, the risk is considerably lower, the opportunity is being taken away from a person who has a higher risk, ”he declared in early September.

While in other states of the country the doses are obtained dropper and after a legal passage of weeks or months in courts by means of protections, in Coahuila was the National Council of the maquiladora and manufacturing industry of Export (Index) who propped up negotiations with Maverick County. According to the official in the list of minors, priority was given to those who suffered from comorbidities such as diabetes and hope that once this first group of immunized minors is made they can manage, with other sectors, the application of more vaccines for to this group of population that only in Black Stones goes up to around the 19,500 children.

“State governments by law cannot buy vaccines and neither does the federation let them apply these vaccines to children, who have the initiative to take them to the checkpoint and allow them to be vaccinated. I have a smart strategy. The industry does. who has understood that vaccinating the population will bring benefits in the medium term, “said Andreu Comas, an academic at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP). Mexico has accumulated 72,000 infected children and 702 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to official figures.

The strategy to immunize the children of maquila workers, driven by the business body Index, follows the same path that last July applied this productive sector to immunize its Mexican employees against the virus. At that time, dozens of buses from states such as Coahuila, Sonora and Tamaulipas were organized to be vaccinated in the US. Since last June, vaccination in Mexico has also focused on the northern border, a key area for the economic recovery of both countries.

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