Mexico Close to Start Vaccination With Pfizer Shot Delivery

Mexico will receive an initial batch of Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday, putting the country in a neck-and-neck race with Chile to become the first Latin American nation to apply the life-saving treatment.

Pfizer will send more than 1.4 million vaccines to Mexico by the end of January, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s daily press briefing in Mexico City on Tuesday. The first vaccinations will start on Thursday, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said at a later press conference.

The vaccine delivery comes as Mexico City shut down all nonessential activity due to a spike in coronavirus cases. Mexico has recorded 40% more deaths than expected this year, include those who died because they couldn’t get treatment at overloaded hospitals, according to a government report published this month.

Mexico Virus Tracker: Cases 1.33 million; Deaths 118,598

In Chile, where the government has secured contracts to inoculate its entire population twice, the vaccine is expected to arrive as early as this week, President Sebastian Pinera said. Brazil, in the meantime, still has to reach a deal with Pfizer to use its vaccine in the region’s largest country.

Sao Paulo, the most populous and affluent Brazilian state, will start vaccinating its 46 million residents on Jan. 25 with shots of the Chinese developed CoronaVac.