Joe Biden does not consider sharing part of the United States’ supply of Covid-19 vaccines with Mexico before all its citizens can have access to them, the White House said on Monday, March 1st.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked his American counterpart today to share part of his doses to combat the coronavirus, Jen Psaki, a presidential spokeswoman, said that it was not something that was in Biden’s plans.
He clarified that the Democrat “has made it clear that his approach is that vaccines are accessible to every American. That is our approach, ”Psaki responded during a press conference to a question about whether López Obrador’s possible request would be considered.
But the official stressed that for the United States the priority is “economic recovery. And that is ensuring that our neighbors, Canada and Mexico have similarly managed to deal with the pandemic in order to open the borders. “
And, once the purpose of vaccinating the Americans is achieved, “we would be in a position to discuss steps forward,” said Psaki.
Mexico’s vaccination program has been delayed due to slow shipments, despite agreements with international manufacturers.
Faced with Pfizer’s delays, Mexico sought to fill the gap and arranged to receive the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and the product manufactured by Chinese biopharmaceutical Sinovac Biotech.
So far, it has only managed to vaccinate 1.4 percent of the population of 126 million inhabitants, which registers more than 185 thousand deaths and more than two million infected.
