Baja California becomes first state in Mexico to vaccinate 13-year-olds

TIJUANA (Border Report) — Dayli Trujillo had been waiting for this day for a long time as she lined up to get her first COVID-19 vaccination.

“I’m very happy to finally get vaccinated,” she said in Spanish.

Trujillo was part of a group of 13-year-olds to be the first south of the border to receive their vaccines.

“I feel safer now,” she said.

The state of Baja California is the first in Mexico to offer shots to teens as young as 13.

The hope, according to Dr. Remedios Lozada, head of health services in Tijuana, is to vaccinate almost 32,000 teens in the Tijuana area within a few weeks.

“It’s good that we’re finally able to do this,” Lozada said. “We’re doing this age group but soon we’ll be able to vaccinate even younger children.”

Lozada stated she was also very happy to see many more people lining up to get their vaccines.

In recent weeks, cities such as Tijuana have been breaking daily records in terms of new COVID-19 cases.

As of Wednesday, there were 7,552 active cases in Baja California, according to an article in the daily newspaper El Sol de Tijuana, which also reported that more than 1,500 new cases were confirmed in the previous 24 hours, a record in the state for a single day.

Health officials say close to 94 percent of the new cases are people who had not been vaccinated.

Some residents who had put off getting their vaccines may have stopped taking chances, Lozada said.

“Now we’re also offering booster shots to anyone 40 and older, we are ramping up our vaccination drives,” she said.

Lozada is also warning people not to let their guard down even if they are fully vaccinated.

“We saw people relaxed in December and look at what happened, let’s not stop using our facemasks properly, let’s wash our hands constantly and forget going to large gatherings.”

Lozada added that if people don’t protect themselves, the pandemic will linger well into 2022.