Portugal with more than 84% of the population vaccinated (with audio) – O Jornal Económico
AN Task force of vaccination managed that 84.3% of the population was vaccinated with two doses of vaccine, admitted this Tuesday the vice admiral. In the case of the first doses, Portugal has already managed to immunize 86.5% of the population.
Regarding the difference between the values of administration of first and second doses, Vice Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo assume that “in this final phase, it seems that people have forgotten that they have to take a second dose”.
In view of the distribution of vaccines, the coordinator of Task force admitted that “this was the quarter [terceiro] in which we have more vaccines than expected”, and the greater number of vaccines available” predicts us to finish our plan”.
Gouveia e Melo also secured the purchase amounts for new vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna in the coming quarters. No fourth quarter of the year is expected to reach a total of six million vaccines, an equivalent figure for the first quarter of 2022, estimated at 5.78 million in the second quarter. In total, Portugal will also receive 12 million vaccines from Pfizer and 5.69 million from Moderna, an amount that should help if the European Medicines Agency decides to proceed with the administration of the third doses.
The coordinator also welcomed the “great effort of the Ministry of Health” when it came to arranging vaccines “in the period when it was most needed”, before the summer, namely. It was during this period that, according to the vice admiral, Portugal managed to reach the daily milestone of one million administered vaccines.
Henrique Gouveia e Melo recalled that there are still citizens who are recovering from the infection and who cannot be vaccinated yet, as they have to go through a three-month recovery period. Still, the vice admiral assured that “coverage is quite high”.
“Only 5% of young people do not charge for the vaccination process. Many have been infected and still cannot come”, said the vice-admiral in a summary of the process.
“We have to vaccinate another 345,000 people. About 140,000 are still not eligible because they are recovering and 80,000 have already recovered and we still haven’t been able to vaccinate them”, he continued.
People who are already eligible for vaccination after recovery, but who have not yet traveled to the centers after successive appeals, the person responsible for Task force admitted that they will be contacted for “because we still do not comply with the vaccination process”.
The vaccination of young people, which started later, has been going at a good pace, according to the coordinator. “Half a million young people were vaccinated [500 mil], of these, 464,000 second dose vaccines have already been given. Of the remaining ones, there is still time for second doses, 36,000 young people and others have already surpassed them, and we will have to communicate to the young people or their parents why they either forgot or they may have had Covid”.
When Portugal reached 70% of the population fully vaccinated, on August 19, the vice-admiral revealed to the prime minister that “the incidence began to drop abruptly”. “So anyone who has doubts that vaccination has an extraordinary influence on this, is looking at this graph, which shows the actual process.”