Chile Welcomes Second Shipment of Sinovac Vaccines

Chile received a second shipment of nearly 2 million vaccines developed by Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech on Sunday, which will be used to begin the mass vaccination in the country, scheduled to start on Wednesday.

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Deputy Health Minister Paula Daza said that these shipments of CoronaVac will allow for the vaccination of about 4 million people in February.

"There is work and logistics that are being done for vaccinations in the field with municipality representatives," she said.

After the arrival of the new shipment, President Sebastian Pinera confirmed that mass vaccination will start with high-risk groups.

The graph shows the daily evolution of the weekly average of the number of new COVID-19 cases in Chile.

Chile began the vaccination of health workers on December 24 and will immunize the entire population at risk (about 5 million people) during the first quarter of 2021.

So far, its authorities have approved the use of Pfizer, Sinovac, and AstraZeneca vaccines.

As of Tuesday morning, Chile had reported 730,888 COVID-19 cases and 18,537 deaths.