Seniors lining up to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in Mexico City on Thursday morning shook off the cold with a spot of dancing to tunes such as disco classic I Will Survive.

Health promotion workers stationed outside a vaccination center in the borough of Iztacalco got the festivities started by encouraging those waiting for a Sputnik V shot to cut a rug in the street as music played over a sound system.

One of the workers even belted out a few songs over karaoke backing tracks to entertain the seniors, some of whom had begun lining up on Wednesday night.

Some hummed or singed along to the music as they danced, the newspaper Reforma reported.

With tears in his eyes, 67-year-old Juan Mario Cárdenas told Reforma that he has lost friends to Covid-19 and that getting vaccinated was a matter of life and death for him.

He is one of almost 200,000 people in the Mexico City boroughs of Iztacalco, Xochimilco and Tláhuac who are expected to receive a first shot of the Sputnik V vaccine by the end of next week.

Inoculation with the Russian vaccine began in the capital – the country’s coronavirus epicenter – on Wednesday 1 1/2 weeks after the first AstraZeneca shots were given to people aged 60 and over in the boroughs of Milpa Alta, Cuajimalpa and Magdalena Contreras.

About 1.9 million vaccine doses had been administered in Mexico as of Wednesday night, mainly to health workers and seniors. The government expects to receive more than 100 million doses from several companies by the end of May.

Source: Reforma (sp)