Ecuador: Guayaquil’s Mayor announces mandatory vaccination certificate to enter shopping centers, restaurants, Metrovía

July 19, 2021

Guayaquil Mayor Cynthia Viteri last week discussed resolutions to encourage vaccinating all Guayaquil citizens, increasing vaccination stations and restrictive measures such as requiring vaccination certificates. The announcement was made at the cantonal COE (Emergency Operations Committee) session on July 14.

Mayor Viteri said: “The message is very clear, what we are offering you through the vaccine is to live.” She went on to claim: “The vaccine means living, the possibility to be alive. Not getting vaccinated means the certain possibility of dying if infected with COVID," without citing scientific evidence to support her claims.

She continued: "The difference between taking the vaccine or not is that you can still get infected in both cases - without one you could die and with the other you live, that is the difference."

She also gave notice: “To the public, after a few months, this same table of the cantonal COE will make decisions such as, for example, requiring vaccination certification of two doses to enter shopping centers and restaurants, and to get on the Metrovia,” the most widely-used means of transportation in the city. “Therefore, the vaccination certificate will be your pass if you want to leave your home. You have several months to get vaccinated before measures like the ones we are announcing take effect.”

On March 29, Guayaquil’s Mayor and Public Health Minister Mauro Falconí signed an Inter-Institutional Framework Agreement to receive 1.8 million doses to vaccinate the population of Guayaquil.