All three vaccines in Catalonia as immunisation of pharmacists, prison officials and police officers begins

Catalonia starts a "new stage of vaccination" this week. It has received doses of the three available vaccines - the first AstraZeneca doses arrived at noon - and the vaccination of new certain professionals, such as pharmacists or prison officials, will begin on Tuesday.

Specifically, the Department of Health will have at its disposal 31,780 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 64,530 Pfizer doses and 17,100 Moderna vaccines. This, in total, means the Catalan government will have a total of 112,000 doses this week. The head of the Health Department, Alba Vergés, reassured Catalans that vaccines would be administered swiftly: "As soon as we receive them, we will administer them; every single one".

After two weeks when only second doses were being administered, Catalonia will restart the administration of first doses of all three vaccines. AstraZeneca's vaccine, which in Spain will not be administered to people over 55 years old, will allow two more advances in the vaccination campaign. On the one hand, immunisation of more health professionals, such as pharmacists, pharmacy assistants, physiotherapists, speech therapists, podiatrists or nutritionists will begin shortly. they will receive a message informing them where and when they can go to get vaccinated (37 vaccination points have been prepared throughout Catalonia). On the other hand, other key workers will start receiving the jab. It is the case of firefighters, police officers, Civil Protection workers and prison officials. Vergés has announced that on Tuesday most Catalan prisons will receive the first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Improvement in care homes and community, but not in hospitals

In fact, the first round of vaccination begins to have effect on care homes, after three out of four residents in the Catalan nursing homes have been vaccinated. Vergés has said that she is already working to "recover life within care homes", with new mobility protocols, but did not want to specify what new measures will be taken or what deadlines to expect.

Outside care homes, the epidemiological situation is improving, although very slowly. The Secretary General of Health, Marc Ramentol, has claimed the downward trend in infections (the transmission rate, the Rt, is below 0.9 and cumulative incidence over 14 days has fallen below 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the first time - 483), but has warned that the situation in hospitals is far from normalised. "The threats remain: the British variant may spread and care pressure remains very high," said Ramentol. There are now 2,635 people in hospital, 69 more than the day before, of which 694 are in ICU. Lately there has been 53 deaths due to covid-19. The British variant in Catalonia still accounts for 17% of cases detected and no cases of the South African or Brazilian variants have been discovered.