With the arrival of the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine shipment from Russia, Latin American countries Mexico, Chile, and Costa Rica begin a mass vaccination campaign as they inoculate the high-risk priority groups such as frontline doctors and medics and nursing home elderly occupants. Mexico, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic with a grim figure for a death toll became the first Latin American country to roll out the vaccines on LIVE television after it procured nearly 3,000 doses of Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine. Shortly, Chile and Costa Rica joined Mexico and began mass inoculation, with Argentina next in line to start vaccinating people with Russian manufactured vaccine Sputnik V.
According to AP, frontline medics and healthcare workers were the first ones to get the Pfizer vaccine shots at the Metropolitan Hospital in Santiago in Chile. Chile became the first South American country and the second Latin American nation after Mexico to begin vaccination. Health minister Enrique Paris announced that the southern hardest-hit regions of La Araucanía, Biobío, and Magallanes will start vaccination first as 10,000 additional shipments are expected next week. Meanwhile, Brazil announced that it will begin vaccination in mid-February, 2021, even as the country continues to be ravaged by the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.