Record number of vaccinations: Catalonia administers 60,000 doses in one day

BarcelonaThe Catalan Minister of Health, Alba Vergés, reported on Wednesday that Catalan vaccination teams have administered 60,000 doses in the last 24 hours, the highest daily figure since the start of the immunisation campaign. Most (88%) were first doses. The department aims to administer 40,000 daily doses between Tuesday and Thursday, the 120,000 distributed this week, to ensure primary health care professionals involved in vaccination rest during the Easter holiday. At the moment, the goal would be met. "If there are doses to vaccinate, we will not stop even one day," recalled Vergés. If they cannot all be administered, vaccination will continue on Friday.

The vaccination campaign "is picking up pace" thanks to the efforts of health workers and Vergés has claimed that the Catalan strategy is increasingly "strong and intense". A proof of this acceleration are the over-80s. On Tuesday the vaccination rate with the first dose of this group was 37% and this Wednesday has already reached 45%.

After a few days administering second doses, this week the Health Department has been able to allocate Pfizer vaccines to advance the vaccination of the elderly. 23.9% have received the second dose. The Health Department has also focused these days on elderly dependents, some 40,000 people who are mainly over 79 years old: 74.2% have already been vaccinated with the first dose and 60.7% have completed the vaccination schedule.

Right now, Catalonia has administered 1,285,313 doses since 27 December: 861,212 have been first doses, which have served to partially immunise 11.2% of the elderly population. Of these, 424,101 people (5.5% of the census) have already received the two doses and have completed the vaccination schedule. As to key workers, 62.4% have already received the first dose and 1.9% the full schedule, whilst 17.5% of people aged 60 to 65, who are being administered AstraZeneca's vaccine since last week, have already received the first dose.

"The vaccines win us time against the virus".

The vaccination campaign, also on a Spanish scale, will have a new impetus from this Thursday with the arrival of a million AstraZeneca doses. The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, said at a press conference that the batch, along with those received from Pfizer and Moderna at the beginning of the week, will mean that for the first time since vaccination began in the State there are more than two million doses in Spain in the same week.

"We need the vaccines to win us time against the virus to prevent the spike in cases end in a fourth wave," said Darias. The minister said that it was necessary to prioritise the vaccination of the over-60s. So far 7.7 million people have been vaccinated, 2.6 million of whom have received the two doses and are therefore immunised. In fact, 80% of the population included in vaccination groups 1 and 6 (users and staff of residential homes, health professionals, prison workers, dependents, vulnerable and essential groups) have already been vaccinated, and 41% have received both doses.