The president of Mexico receives a booster dose of AstraZeneca against the coronavirus at a press conference

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), and part of his cabinet received this Tuesday during a press conference their booster dose of the vaccine against covid-19 from AstraZeneca on the day that the campaign for additional vaccines for those over 60 years began.

At the end of his morning conference in the city of Zapopan, in the western state of Jalisco, López Obrador, 68, took off his coat and sat in a chair next to the presidential lectern where a nurse applied the dose to his left arm. .

The president, who had covid-19 last January, assured the nurse that he did not have a fever or serious allergic reactions when they applied his two previous doses of AstraZeneca on April 20 and June 15, also during press conferences.

After the injection, the president, of the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena), joked that he had been vaccinated in his left arm.

Before López Obrador, five members of his cabinet passed through the needle, all over 60 years old: the Secretary of Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, the Secretary of the Navy, Rafael Ojeda, the commander of the National Guard, Luis Rodríguez Bucio, and the Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval.

Instead, the chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard, also over 60, refused to receive the vaccine in public.

Mexico started this Tuesday the booster vaccination against covid-19 for adults over 60 years of age, who will receive a dose of AstraZeneca regardless of the type of vaccine they have received in the past.

The booster dose program began in six of the country’s 32 states: Mexico City, Chiapas, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, and Yucatán.

The government strategist against the covid-19 pandemic, Hugo López-Gatell, defended during the president’s press conference that the additional dose “may be with other vaccines” to those already received and for now ruled out “generalized reinforcements” to the entire population.

“The reinforcements should focus on the most vulnerable population groups, for example the elderly or those suffering from immunosuppressive diseases,” he said.

Mexico accumulates 3.9 million COVID-19 infections and 295,300 confirmed deaths, the fourth highest figure in the world, and has vaccinated 65.5 million of its 126 million inhabitants with the complete scheme.

Despite the detection of the first case of the new omicron variant in Mexico last week, López-Gatell said that this week began with a reduction in cases and ruled out “a general trend towards a possible fourth wave.”

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