Well-off Latin Americans are heading to the U.S. for Covid vaccine shots.

[Hamartia Antidote]

Covid News: Wealthy Latin Americans Head to U.S. for Vaccines

U.S. travel is nearing a pandemic peak for Memorial Day weekend. Hong Kong exempts top business executives from tough quarantine measures.

www.nytimes.com

Frustrated with the lagging pace of Covid vaccination campaigns at home, wealthy and middle-class Latin Americans with tourist visas have in recent weeks been flocking to the United States, where there is a surplus of vaccine doses and where demand has been lagging.

The access has proved a bonanza for the privileged in countries where the virus continues to take a brutal toll — even if many struggle with the fact that vaccine tourism only exacerbates the inequality that has been a hallmark of the pandemic.

Sean Simons, a spokesman for the ONE Campaign, which works to eradicate disease and poverty, said vaccine travel could have serious unintended consequences, and urged nations with vaccine surpluses to funnel them instead through a World Health Organization vaccine distribution system known as Covax.

The Biden administration said this month that it would give 80 million vaccine doses by the end of June to countries that are scrambling to vaccinate their people.

Still, as success stories of Latin Americans getting their jabs are shared on social media posts and by word of mouth, and local officials in New York and Alaska actively encourage vaccination tourism, the cost of airfare on several routes has skyrocketed as thousands make plans to head north.

Florencia Gonzalez Alzaga, a photographer from Buenos Aires, hatched her plan to fly to the United States for a coronavirus vaccine after the subject came up in her Zoom book club.