Mexico’s president publicly received a coronavirus vaccine Tuesday, in part to encourage other older Mexicans to get their shots.
“Have you presented with a fever in the last 24 hours,” military nurse Medina Vega asked President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday morning during his daily press conference.
After a few more questions, she gave the 67-year-old an injection of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine.
“To start with, the vaccine doesn’t hurt,” the president said, after calling on all eligible older Mexicans to get the shot.
Currently only frontline healthcare personnel, Mexicans over the age of 60 and more recently educators in some states are eligible to receive doses.
The president’s dose was one of about 14,600,000 doses administered in the country so far, which works out to a rate roughly seven times slower than the neighboring United States, according to the most recent official dose counts from each country.
