Covid-19: Portugal tops the world in vaccination but without beating the virus
Vaccination against covid-19 started a year ago in Portugal, but as expectations of defeating the coronvirus with the immunization of the population are gone, due to new variants that forced the Portuguese to vaccinate more.
On December 27, 2020, the doctor António Sarmento special the first vaccine against covid-19, symbolically marking the start of a plan prepared for three phases, which represents an investment of around 200 million euros for the acquisition of more than 22 million doses, and which prioritized the elderly and health professionals.
In addition to the lack of vaccines, a constraint across the European Union, the plan was damaged in its credibility in the first few weeks, due to dozens of situations of vaccination of non-priority people, which led to the opening of several inquiries.
This troubled initial phase met a new development on February 3, when the coordinator of the `task force’ on vaccination, Francisco Ramos, resigned, for irregularities detected by him in the selection of health professionals at the Hospital da Cruz Vermelha, where he is chairman of the executive committee.
A few hours after this resignation was announced, the country got to know Vice Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, who was already part of a `task force’, but who started to coordinate the complex logistics of vaccination in Portugal.
“We will have to analyze a reason for the failures and try to prevent them from happening again. There is a lot to do and a list that is always long. Imagine the complexity of a task that is to vaccinate, roughly twice, a population of 10 million inhabitants “, said the new coordinator of the `task force´ at the time.
Already at cruising speed and with a more simplified plan, Portugal, at the end of March, surpassed one million vaccinated with the first dose, vaccinating teachers and non-teaching staff shortly thereafter, with an expectation that, by the end of the summer , the vaccination of 70% of the population allowed to defeat the coronavirus.
With the supply of vaccines resolved, with pharmaceutical companies making deliveries more regularly, the country entered the phase of “liberating the economy” in May, with the mass vaccination of the Portuguese, which had to be accelerated to respond to the rapid spread of Delta variant.
With the emergence of this variant, which quickly became prevalent throughout the country, an assessed goal of coverage for collective protection was raised from 70% to around 85% of the population vaccinated with at least one dose.
At this stage, the “biggest challenge” was the ability to schedule millions of people, which forced a “huge and permanent effort to update its processes, as well as the development of new ‘web’ and centralized solutions, with the inherent “birth pangs” of a process that was taking place in real time, highlight a document summarizing the `work team’ strategy.
On July 9, during the mass vaccination campaign of the Portuguese in around 300 centers across mainland Portugal, a record of vaccines administered in a single day was reached, with 160,536 inoculations, around 1.6 of the population.
In the following month, the country reached 70% of the population with complete vaccination and the debate began on the possibility of administering a third dose to boost immunity against SARS-CoV-2, which took place in October, starting with older people and home users.
Also in October, the month in which the simultaneous vaccination of covid-19 and flu started, Portugal reached a target of 85% of the population with complete vaccination.
“Today is a happy day. Today, we have, in fact, reached our goal of vaccinating against covid-19, with complete vaccination, 85% of our population”, said the director-general of Health, Graça Freitas on October 9, noting that this goal it was achieved “by giving an opportunity to everyone, without distinction from anyone, to be vaccinated”.
Days earlier, on September 28, a `task force’ responsible for the covid-19 vaccination plan ended its planning and logistical management mission, with Gouveia and Melo assuring that it would return to the “anonymity of military functions”.
But the end of the `task force’ mission did not mean the end of vaccination, which continued with a booster dose and the immunization of young people aged 12 to 17, at a time when the country was beginning to enter a new wave of infections, with the majority of users in school and university environments.
The end of the year brought a new threat, an Ómicron variant, already considered to be more transmissible than Delta and which has grown exponentially in Portugal, representing almost 47% of infections registered last week.
On December 7, the DGS recommended the vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 years, who formed to be vaccinated on the 18th and 19th, but this process may be far from over, due to the possibility of a fourth dose to respond to Ómicron.
“A joint purchase process of a vaccine already adapted to the [variante do vírus] Ómicron, which will be available after the spring, and we have already submitted the purchase order”, said the prime minister, António Costa, recently in Brussels.
Currently, nearly 8.7 million people have been fully vaccinated, more than 2.3 million have had a booster dose, and nearly 95,000 children have been vaccinated with the first dose of the pediatric version of Pfizer’s vaccine.
With this process, Portugal joined the top of the world list of countries with the greatest coverage of the vaccinated population, but this achievement was not necessary so that, a year after being administered the first dose, it managed to win a pandemic.
Portuguese
2021-12-25