Cancun, Q.R. — One and a half million tourist workers will be vaccinated against Covid, says state governor Carlos Joaquín. He says that “to take care of those who work in the tourist industry of Quintana Roo, we are working in coordination with CONAGO, with the approval of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, to acquire vaccines.
“The first million and a half doses could be arriving between April or May,” he said. The governor explained that they have created a registration group between the states interested in vaccinating their tourism workers.
He says the group includes business chambers and hotel associations that would commit to a certain amount of vaccines for workers, including those in bars and restaurants. The states would then be able to buy the vaccines.
There would be around 20 million vaccines that would be sold to the states, distributed to the states that registered and committed a certain amount of resources to acquire them.
It is currently in the contracting and purchasing process, he noted.
The president of the Caribbean Business Coordinating Council (CCEC), Iván Ferrat Mancera, said that given the possibility that the private sector may be able to acquire Covid vaccines, the Cancun Hotel Association is part of the registered group preparing a database for employees.
As soon as the state government can purchase the vaccines, the business sector will join forces to make a joint purchase and accelerate vaccination, not only to depend on the program that the Federal Government has established around this issue.
“We are doing synergy with the Hotel Association, waiting for the date. The sooner the better, but it must be remembered that this does not depend on the state sector or the private sector, but rather a protocol of phases of the same vaccines, which are carried out worldwide,” he said.
Visitors to the region would definitely have a lot more confidence to travel, he said adding “with the pandemic, tourist competition became more acute, so-to-speak.”
