Health Dpt confident vaccination of under-40s will start in July

BarcelonaThe vaccination campaign in Catalonia is progressing at a good pace, with more than 400,000 doses administered every week, and the Catalan Health Department is confident that it will be even faster in June, when it is expecting to exceed 600,000 doses per week. The forecast is that by mid-June and can make a general call to vaccinate people aged 40 to 49 years and that the next band, the under-40s, can begin to be immunised in July. As detailed by the head of the vaccination plan in Catalonia, Carmen Cabezas, in an interview on RAC1, there will be no prioritisation of patients for the under-40s: at that stage, all of the remaining population will be called upon to make an appointment to be vaccinated, as has been done in the US, . This takes into account the fact that in this younger age group there may be more people who do not see the need for the vaccine. "Younger people may not assess there to be as high a risk." In any case, however, she is confident that most young people will get vaccinated and that this will not jeopardise herd immunity.

Cabezas has also advanced that they are awaiting the assessments of the European Medicines Agency to see if vaccination is authorised for children aged 12 to 16 years, which has been tested with good results in the United States. The doctor is confident that in summer Catalonia will be able to consider vaccinating this age group.

The head of the vaccination plan has confirmed that they hope to have vaccinated 70% of the population in summer even if it is not with the two doses. She pointed out, however, that there is still "quite a lot of work" in the age group that is now being vaccinated, that of 50 to 59 years, which contains more than a million people.

She also wanted to send a message of "calm" to people who have received a first dose of the vaccine AstraZeneca and are now waiting for the second. She has advanced that they expect to know the decision on which second dose to administer next Tuesday and said that, in any case, both administering a second dose of Pfizer and AstraZeneca are "good solutions".

In the case of people who have already had the virus, she said that it is necessary to receive a dosis of the vaccine six months after the disease, and that people over 65 years no longer needed the second. She also referred to the vaccination of pregnant women to point out that every time they see more benefits than risks, because they have already vaccinated women who did not know they were pregnant and have observed no adverse reactions although pregnant women are more at risk of complications if they catch the virus.

All covid indicators improve in Catalonia

Hospital pressure continues to fall in Catalonia: today there are 54 fewer patients admitted to the ward (1,227) and 13 fewer in ICU (410). The Health Department has notified 1,011 new infections and 18 deaths (22,046). The risk of resurgence is down 4 points (191), and the Rt, one hundredth (0.84). As for vaccination, 29.4% of Catalans have already received at least one dose of vaccine. In the last 24 hours 75,249 vaccines have been administered: 57,560 first doses and 17,560 second doses. In total, 2,300,201 first doses and 1,023,047 second doses have been administered.