The campaign in Baja California to vaccinate adults against Covid-19 has concluded, the federal government announced Friday.
The northern border state is the first in Mexico where all people aged 18 and over have been offered a shot.
“Mission accomplished,” President López Obrador declared at his morning news conference.
More than 1.2 million single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses donated by the United States were recently used to vaccinate people aged 18 to 39 in the state, while seniors and people aged 40 to 59 were offered shots earlier in the vaccine rollout, which began in Mexico six months ago.
“We have the final report that tells us that the population of Baja California is totally vaccinated against Covid-19,” Security Minister Rosa Rodríguez told the president’s press conference. “… We did it, Mr. President, and we’re moving ahead,” she said, adding that 10,000 Johnson & Johnson shots remain in the state to inoculate anyone not yet vaccinated.
Rodríguez said that 85,000 doses of the same vaccine will be sent to San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, which borders Baja California and Arizona, in order to begin the vaccination of young people in that municipality.
The government is aiming to vaccinate all people in northern border municipalities as soon as possible in order to expedite the opening of the Mexico-United States border to nonessential travel.
The federal Health Ministry reported Thursday that one in three people aged 18 and over, or about 29.1 million people, have received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine. It said that just over 18 million people are fully vaccinated and just under 11.1 million people have received one dose of a two-shot vaccine.
Registration on the government’s vaccination website is currently open to all adult residents of northern border municipalities, pregnant women and all other people who reach the age of 30 or more this year.
It is unclear when the vaccination of children will commence, but health regulator Cofepris granted authorization on Thursday for the Pfizer vaccine to be used on those aged 12 and over.
“It’s the first Covid-19 vaccine authorized for adolescents in our country,” Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell wrote on Twitter. “It’s news that will allow us to keep protecting the people of Mexico.”
Vaccination has helped drive down coronavirus case numbers and Covid-19 deaths in Mexico, although a small group of states including Quintana Roo, Yucatán and Baja California Sur, have recently seen spikes in new infections.
An average of 3,306 new cases and 354 Covid-19 deaths were reported per day during the first 24 days of June, reductions of 77% and 66%, respectively, compared to January, the worst month of the pandemic here.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally currently stands at 2.49 million, while the official Covid-19 death toll is 232,068.
It has the 21st highest mortality rate in the world with 181.9 Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Peru easily ranks first with 587.8 deaths per 100,000, followed by Hungary with 306.8.
The United States, which has recorded more Covid-19 deaths than any country, is one spot above Mexico, with 183.8 fatalities per 100,000 people.
