A nurse vaccinates a man in Madrid.
The fourth dose of the vaccine against coronavirus stagnates The second booster dose campaign began two months ago and is indicated for all over-60s, people who live and work in residences and healthcare personnel, over 13 million people in total. However, the vaccination campaign has not taken off and is already stagnant.
The Ministry of Health began publishing data on that fourth dose on Oct. 21, four weeks after the campaign began. At that point, as posted Village, 1.6 million people had received it. Meanwhile, the first dose of memory in that same period of time had already been taken by 4.5 million, and at the time it was only indicated for people over 70 years old.
The director general of public health of La Rioja, José Ignacio Aguado, acknowledged to the newspaper Day of Rioja that “there is a certain pandemic fatigue in the population in general, and in this age group in particular (over 60).”
A “quite disappointing” figure.
Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) warned last Thursday that the data on vaccinations with the booster dose in Europe in recent months is “quite disappointing” and warned of the risk of a new wave in winter because the virus ” maintains an accelerated pace” in its evolution.
In a virtual press conference, the head of EMA’s Vaccination Strategy, Marco Cavaleri, highlighted the “concern that people at risk of hospitalization or severe covid-19 are not adequately protected” and regretted that only an average of 29% of the population at high risk of severe disease have received booster doses in recent months.
“The administration of additional doses of vaccines in recent months is quite disappointing,” he stressed. Furthermore, he stressed that “the evolution of the virus maintains an accelerated pace” and that, although we are not observing an increase in cases in the EU due to high immunity, “this could change rapidly as we approach the months in winter”.
Thus, he recalled that the risk of developing severe covid-19 in the event of infection “increases exponentially if you are 60 years of age or older” and assured that “the older you are, the greater the risk, and vaccines can save you the life .”
According to the preliminary data collected so far, vaccines adapted to the new variants increase protection against currently circulating omicron subvariants, thus “revaccinations with adapted vaccines increase protection” against the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.
The pandemic continues
The European agency also warns that the pandemic is not over yet. “It is a semantic debate. Technically we are still in a pandemic (…) Despite the fact that many societies have reopened and we are considered back to normal, the virus is still circulating out there, with a particularly high potential to spread in vulnerable people who are not vaccinated. So I would still consider the pandemic to be continuing,” added Steffen Thirstrup, EMA’s chief medical officer.
However, he believes that “we are getting close to having something like controlling the spread of the virus in Europe, but we have to keep in mind that we are part of a global society, so as soon as some restrictions are lifted or vaccination is reduced, there is the risk of new regrowth,” he warned.
