QCOSTARICA – Costa Rica ranks 12th of Latin America and the Caribbean countries with the greatest advance in vaccination against covid-19.
In eleven nations of the region, the percentage of people inoculated is higher than the one registered in our country
At the head of the race for herd immunization is Chile, where 88.50 out of every 100 inhabitants (as of May 19) have already received at least one dose of some of the vaccines produced to combat covid-19.
This percentage is more than three times higher than that of Costa Rica, where 24.58 out of every 100 inhabitants (as of May 17) have already received the first vaccine.
Chileans even outnumber the United States, where 82.39 out of every 100 inhabitants has already obtained a degree of immunization against the virus.
Like Costa Rica, Chile began the inoculation on December 24, only there, in addition to the vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca, the Sinovac vaccine, of Chinese origin, was also applied.
Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil, in South America; Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Bardados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Dominican Republic and Guyana, in the Caribbean; as well as El Salvador, in Central America, are the other ten countries with a higher percentage of vaccinated people.
For example, out of every 100 inhabitants, 70.38 in Uruguay, 31.07 in the Dominican Republic, 22.98 in Argentina and 22.38 in El Salvador have been vaccinated,
Of the 32 Latin and Caribbean countries, three do not report data on the percentage of immunized inhabitants: Haiti, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Among the 29 countries that do have updated and public records, there are six where not even 3 out of every 100 inhabitants have received one of the doses.
This is the case in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras, in Central America; in Paraguay and Venezuela, in South America; and Cuba, in the Caribbean.
In Central America, Costa Rica is at the top of the list.
The information is based on data from the Oxford University website Our World In Data, which brings together and analyzes, among other issues, data on anticovid vaccination in the world.
The most up-to-date record was taken from each country – most are from Monday, May 17 – although there are nations, whose most recent reports date from mid-April, such as Venezuela, Honduras and Jamaica.
In addition, it was found that, in general terms, the average in Latin America and the Caribbean is 12 out of every 100 inhabitants have already been vaccinated.
The situation in Costa Rica
In Costa Rica, vaccination continues among the 105 health areas that the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) has throughout the country.
See here the CCSS vaccination statisics.
While in 23 of the health areas immunization of Group 3 (people between 16 and 57 years of age with risk factors) has already begun, in the rest of the country it still continues with group 2, those over 58 years of age.
As of Monday, May 17, 1,251,900 doses had been applied against covid-19 That is, on average, 8,694 immunizations have been carried out every day since the vaccination started on December 24, 2020.
To date, 530,018 people already have their complete vaccination schedule (that is both doses) and another 721,882 already have the first dose of the vaccine, either of the Pfizer (the majority) or AstraZeneca vaccine.
In addition, this Tuesday, Costa Rica’s president, Carlos Alvarado, announced that vaccination among educators, solid waste collectors and workers of municipal committees will be expedited. The same will be for officials of the National Children’s Trust (PANI) and the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AYA), being carried out, jointly, with that of Group 3.
For his part, the Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, reported that they will extend the period between the application of the first and second dose. It will no longer be 21 days, but 12 weeks. See Second doses of Pfizer vaccines will be 12 weeks apart
