This is a place where getting vaccinated can feel festive, and what that says about the US

On a recent afternoon at Benito Juárez Elementary School in Mexico City, pop music blared from speakers and uniformed kids ran around. Eventually, one by one, they each swallowed precisely two drops of clear liquid.

Welcome to Mexico’s vaccination day.

While the debate over vaccines continues in pockets of the United States — heated up by the recent measles outbreak linked to Disneyland — the take on vaccines is quite different in Mexico.

In fact, the atmosphere at the Mexico City school during the vaccination event felt festive, and part of an accepted and routine government intervention into the lives of schoolchildren.

Of course, when preschooler Matias Martínez jumped on stage to receive his anti-polio booster, he was oblivious to the day's serious message — that vaccinations save lives. And he barely listened while Mexico’s health minister, Mercedes Juan López, talked about the measles outbreak at Disneyland, how two Mexicans caught the disease and imported it back to Mexico, and how a high immunization rate here prevented more cases.

All that Martínez knew was that the vaccine tasted “like strawberry.”

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