Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico – After saying earlier this month that inoculating younger adolescents and kids under the age 15 was not necessary, on Tuesday, Mexico’s federal government announced that as of Thursday, April 28, Children aged 12 and over can be registered for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s Tuesday morning press conference, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell stressed that “all healthy and unhealthy children” aged 12 and over will now be eligible for a shot. Youths (or their parents) will be able to register their interest in getting vaccinated on the government’s vaccination website.
López-Gatell, who has led the government’s pandemic response, also said that 90% of adults and 87% of the eligible population have been vaccinated. “This allows us to have significant protection against serious cases,” he said. All told, some 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, including over 45 million booster shots.
He went on to say that the country’s coronavirus outbreak is “subsiding almost completely” and that the stage of the “serious pandemic that left us so much pain and suffering has ended. Therefore,” he added, “the federal government will not issue any new coronavirus stoplight maps given the reduced transmission risk.”
The coronavirus czar noted that the stoplight map, which has been a feature of the government’s pandemic management since the middle of 2020, has been solid green for the past seven weeks. “The risk level is not expected to increase in the coming months,” he said.
He also said that the use of face masks is no longer essential, but qualified his remark by adding that they can still be useful in enclosed spaces.
“We’re not going to declare an end to the obligatory use of face makes because we never said they were mandatory. But we can say that the use of face masks is not essential at this time,” López-Gatell said.
Here in Jalisco, mask mandates remain in place.
Although the level of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in Jalisco is the lowest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic, Governor Alfaro does not support removing mask mandates.
“I do not agree, but the health table is the one that must make the decision. I am going to support the idea that continuing to wear a mask is important. My personal opinion is that maintaining the use of face masks avoids risks and it is something that we have all learned. Nobody likes it, but lifting that measure at this time is not the best decision,” said the governor.
The mask issue will be among the topics addressed at the next Jalisco Health Board meeting, which is scheduled to take place on May 8.
With reports from El Financiero and Informador
