Anti-vaccine villagers in Guatemala hold coronavirus team

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Authorities in Guatemala say anti-vaccine residents of a village seized and held a team of nurses who were trying to administer coronavirus shots.

The team was held for about seven hours Monday in the village of Nahuila, in the province of Alta Verapaz, north of Guatemala City.

The villagers said they didn’t want the shots, and later blocked a road and let the air out of the nurses’ tires.

A cooler and about 50 doses of vaccine were destroyed.

Officials say they had previously encountered villages that rejected vaccines, but the head of the provincial health department says this is the first time they faced violence.

According to the CDC, Guatemala has a Very High Level of COVID-19 and is at Level 4 on the COVID-19 Levels. Travelers are asked to avoid Guatemala, saying even fully vaccinated people might be at risk of getting and spreading COVID-19 variants while in the country.