In English
The good pace at which the immunization campaign against the coronavirus is progressing, the largest in history, has achieved that more than half of the Spanish have already completed the vaccination schedule. The milestone has occurred at some point during the weekend, according to the report published this afternoon by the Ministry of Health. In total, 24.04 million citizens (50.7%) have received the two necessary doses of the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca or the only puncture that Janssen requires.
The number of Spaniards who have received at least one puncture amounts to 29.48 million, 62.1% of the population, and the total doses administered exceed 51.2 million.
The new milestone has been celebrated by health officials. Antoni Trilla, head of preventive medicine at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, highlights the good work done and “the very good acceptance that vaccines have in Spain, something that becomes more evident if the data are compared with neighboring countries”. “The campaign is going well, although it is possible that as coverage percentages grow it will be more difficult to continue advancing at this rate. The last kilometers always cost more. But we must continue working to vaccinate as many of the population as possible, because it is the only way to protect the lives of millions of people and put an end to the pandemic, ”says Trilla.
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Quique Bassat, epidemiologist and ICREA researcher at the ISGlobal institute (Barcelona), highlights three stages in the ongoing vaccination campaign. A first in which doubts arose about the safety of any vaccine. “Then this was left behind, the vaccination rate picked up speed and it has been seen that the strategy was good and that it has been applied really well,” he details.
The problem, according to Bassat, has arrived with the delta variant: “With it we have seen how even some people with the complete regimen contract the infection and that to achieve group immunity we will need 80% or even 90% of the vaccinated population, well above the 70% initially planned. This has shown that confidence in vaccination has led to the withdrawal of some measures too soon ”.
Despite the good vaccination data at the national level, the differences between autonomous communities are important. The three that are most advanced are Asturias (62.4%), Galicia (59.5%) and Castilla y León (57.6%). At the bottom of the table stands out the position of the Community of Madrid (47.5%), that systematically demands more vaccines from the Ministry of Health, but that together with the Canary Islands (46.5%), Murcia (47.5%) and the Balearic Islands (47.6%) is the one that is capable of administering the least dose to its population.
The Minister of Health of Madrid, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, has asked this Monday “a little patience” to the Madrilenians who are seeing how they spend the 21 days recommended to receive the second dose of Pfizer and are not cited. Escudero, who recalled that up to 28 days can pass between the two punctures, has attributed the delay to the “current environment of vaccine shortage”, although the truth is that Madrid has about a million doses stored in the warehouses to which is not giving output.
The good progress of the campaign contrasts with the delicate epidemiological situation in Spain due to the explosion of infections that occurred in recent weeks. The increase in transmission began among the younger and not yet vaccinated population, but has already spread to the older population groups, especially among those who had not yet completed the vaccination regimen.
About 100% of vaccinated among the most vulnerable
Immunization is already completed among those over 80 years of age (100%) and is close to being achieved in the group between 70 and 79 years of age (97.6%). A little more is missing between those aged 60 and 69 (81.2%), the group to which the AstraZeneca vaccine has been destined, which requires a greater separation between the two doses (initially 12 weeks, although most communities have shortened this term to eight). The campaign is also progressing at a very good pace among the next age group, 50-59, whose immunization is already 85.5%. It is these last two age groups that currently concern health officials the most due to the increased risk they have of developing serious clinical pictures of covid.
The upward trend in vaccination rates, however, also extends to the youngest. 62.7% of those aged 40 to 49 have completed the pattern, a figure that rises to 21% among those aged 30 to 39. Vaccination coverage does not exceed 20% below that age, but most communities are already beginning to open agendas to also tap this group (from the age of 16) and help contain the fifth wave of the pandemic.
Spain is thus among the EU countries with the best vaccination coverage against the coronavirus. The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC, in its acronym in English) launched a notice last week to a dozen countries urging them to promote the vaccination of their elders after the slowdown observed in their vaccination rate. According to ECDC data, which offers higher percentages because they take into account the population over 18 years of age (Health makes its calculations on the total of citizens), only four countries of the European Union surpass Spain in the proportion of citizens completely vaccinated. They are Malta (82%), Hungary (64.6%), Ireland (60.8%), and Cyprus (57.4%), compared to the 55.9% achieved by the Spanish communities.
All of them have a much smaller population than the Spanish and, in the case of Hungary, it is the only country that has used, in addition to the four vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), another four from third countries: CanSino and Sinopharm (China), Sputnik (Russia) and Covishield (Indian-produced version of the AstraZeneca vaccine).
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