The first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines arrived at the Juan Santamaría Airport in San Jose this evening of Wednesday, December 23. This shipment contained 9,750 vaccines.

The government announced that this Thursday two senior citizens and two members of the health care system will be vaccinated in a symbolic public activity; however, the vaccination will begin officially on Monday, December 28th giving priority to senior citizens in elderly homes and their caregivers.

“The arrival of these first dosages give us hope, but this does not mean that we have to forget about preventive measures, we need a bigger effort to protect the most vulnerable population”, commented the Ministry of Health, Daniel Salas.

The second shipment is expected next week for a total of 11,700 additional dosages. More shipments are expected in January.

The vaccine will be applied on the arm of each patient. Two dosages are needed per patient to reach immunity and must be applied with a difference of 21 days. It is possible that patients are not completely protected until after 7 days of receiving the second dosage.
As it happens with all vaccines, there can be side-effects such as pain in the area where the shot was applied, swelling, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, fever, chills, nausea, among others.

The vaccine has a 90% effectiveness.

Once the first group is vaccinated, the vaccination will continue with group two which includes people over 58 years of age, with or without risk factors. The third group will include people with age range 18-58 that present risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, chronic kidney disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer patients, and people with morbid obesity or class III obesity. Education personnel (public and private sectors) and personnel of the nation’s child welfare agency PANI, inmates, compose group 4. The fifth and last group includes students of health science careers, the population between 40-57 years of age that do not have any risk factors but due to their occupation are in direct contact with the public.

The vaccine will be available in private health care facilities by midyear.