VACCINE DONATION
A Health Ministry employee enters a government facility in San Salvador on Thursday that stores COVID-19 vaccines. El Salvador’s president sent 34,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to seven towns in Honduras on the same day, responding to video pleas from their mayors posted to social media. The gesture by President Nayib Bukele raised eyebrows in both countries. El Salvador has been more successful than neighboring Honduras and Guatemala in obtaining vaccine, but all three lag in vaccinating their people. Bukele’s move also provided a distraction amid concern over the consolidation of power in El Salvador’s three branches of government by the party led by the president, who is highly popular domestically.