Vacation and achieve immunity against coronavirus. And not necessarily in that order. The arrival of the vaccine has created a business opportunity that many have wanted to take advantage of by launching what has been called ‘vaccine tourism’.
Some international travel agencies have offered their clients tour packages of doubtful legality consisting of spending a few days in places like Dubai or Miami and achieving the long-awaited immunity against Covid before it corresponds to them in their country or territory.
In Spain, for now, no offer or demand for this type of service has been detected, as confirmed 20 minutes by the Business Federation of Territorial Associations of Spanish Travel Agencies (FETAVE).
Dubai: the thwarted possibility (for now) for the rich
Among the organizations that have offered these tour packages is the select Knightsbridge Circle club, according to the British media The Telegraph and The Guardian. It is a kind of luxury travel agency where only the annual fee to be a VIP client amounts to about 28,000 euros per year.
This company offers its members over 65 a luxury vacation in Dubai to receive the coronavirus vaccine for almost 50,000 euros.
For now, the emirate authorities have denied that this possibility exists and that only citizens and residents of the United Arab Emirates can have access to the vaccine against covid-19 in the country.
The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health has so far approved the preparations of Pfizer / BioNTech, that of the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm and the Russian Sputnik V.
More than 50,000 ‘illegal’ vaccinated in Florida
In the United States, where the vaccination strategy is decided by each state, thousands of people have been found to have traveled specifically to New Jersey or Florida to get vaccinated for free. All this on their own account or through travel agencies such as India’s Gem Tours & Travels, which initially offered to travel from Bombay to New York with vaccine included for 1,700 euros. Later, this agency, faced with the uproar caused, clarified that it only provided flights and accommodation.
In Florida, for example, where the vaccine is offered free of charge to those over 65, more than 50,000 people from other states and foreign countries have been illegally immunized, according to several US media outlets, such as NBC South Florida. . Foreign tourists came mainly from Canada, Brazil and Argentina.
This fraud has caused the authorities to demand since January 21 from people who want to vaccinate their identity document and bills that justify that they live in Florida at least three months a year.
The Cuban case: guarantees the vaccine to tourists
Where the vaccine will be guaranteed for tourists who wish it will be in Cuba. The government has turned immunity into a tourist claim. In an advertising video of the island, Vicente Verez, director of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines in Havana, assures that this year the entire Cuban population – some 11 million people – will be vaccinated and that “tourists will have the option, if they want to be vaccinated in Cuba ”.
Verez explains that the country plans to produce 100 million doses of its Sovereign 2 vaccine, the most advanced of the four that are currently in the testing phase. This excess production will also serve to offer vaccines to other countries, such as Vietnam, Iran, Venezuela or India.
