Vaccination in Mexico as a Political Strategy

Abstract

Worldwide vaccination has reduced hospitalization and lethality of COVID-19. However, access to vaccines has not been homogeneous across regions and individual countries have shaped their own strategy for the distribution and application of vaccines. In Mexico, vaccination started in November 2020. This chapter reviews Mexico’s vaccination strategy and its coverage in comparison with other countries and the impact of vaccination on mortality rates. We also analyze if vaccination may have been used as a political strategy given its application patterns before two major events, i.e., midterm elections and a public consultation. Finally, we evaluate socioeconomic variables across states to predict the vaccination coverage state-wise. We found that as of January 2022, almost 60% of Mexicans has been vaccinated. Thus, mortality associated to COVID-19 has reduced compared with the three previous contagion waves. Finally, the socioeconomic variable that better explain differences across states in terms of vaccination coverage was the percentage of rural population, that is, vaccination was lower where rural population was highest. This result goes against the Mexican federal strategy of protecting the most vulnerable regions first, where rural population was the largest.