In early October 2021, a mob of several hundred people attacked nurses providing COVID-19 vaccinations and held them hostage. Though details are sparse, the incident happened in the rural Guatemalan village of Maguilá in Alta Verapaz province near Quetzaltenango. One vehicle was rendered inoperable through vandalism, and a cooler used to keep the vaccines effective in the tropical heat was destroyed, resulting in the loss of about fifty doses. A BBC News article quoted a nurse as saying, “We tried to explain a number of times that vaccination is voluntary and that we did not want to force anyone, yet they didn’t let us [work].” The team was released after about seven hours of negotiations with police.
Gabriel Sandoval, director of the provincial health department, noted that vaccination reluctance isn’t new, but this was an escalation from the typical latent hesitancy: “Other communities have refused, but what they usually do is draw up papers saying we went to offer to vaccinate them, and they take responsibility for refusing it,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. Sandoval added that because of the misinformation about vaccines and distrust of doctors in the region—and on social media specifically—“This was bound to happen.” President Alejandro Giammattei responded to the incident by asking Guatemalans to support and respect public health officials. Only about one in four eligible Guatemalans have been fully vaccinated, very low even by Latin American standards, where the pandemic has put added pressure on an already weak public health inf rastructure.