The White House prevents the California community from donating covid-19 vaccines to Mexico
Pfizer vaccine dose against covid-19.
Photo: ARIANA DREHSLER / AFP / Getty Images
The federal government did not allow a community in southern California to donate covid-19 vaccines to Mexico that he did not use and they were about to expire.
In a move that has been widely criticized by health officials, the White House task force prevented, for bureaucratic reasons, that San Diego health officials carry out the donation of doses of vaccines against covid-19 that they did not use to Mexico.
According to information from The Washington Post, it was about 10,000 doses close to their expiration date. Thus, began to manage to be able to send them to their neighbors in Mexicali, in Baja California, on the other side of the border.
The reasons
Eric McDonald, San Diego County Chief Medical Officer, charged that he was told by the White House Vaccine Task Force that what they intended to do “It was not possible”.
In his defense, the federal government argued that only he can export vaccines, because is solely responsible for its use. He also added that could not guarantee that the transfer could take place in the ideal conditions if it was done by someone else.
Carlos Gutiérrez Gutiérrez, Mexican consul in San Diego, regretted the determination from Washington.
“On the Mexican side they begged for help. It’s frustrating that we had to say no, when it would have been so easy to make a difference, “he said, quoted by the outlet. Jess Medel, chief of pulmonary medicine and critical care at the University of California, San Diego, spoke in a similar vein. “It is hard to believe that it is better to let the doses expire and throw them away instead of putting them to use,” he said.
This also interests you:
– The United States has donated and delivered 200 million vaccines against covid-19 to the world
– US announces plan to vaccinate 28 million children ages 5 to 11
– What vaccines are not authorized to enter the United States?
.
