Health Department expects to have vaccinated over-80s in two months and about 40% of the population in June

BarcelonaThe health authorities are working with the idea that between 30% and 40% of the Catalan population, mainly risk groups and essential groups, will be vaccinated by June. Those who are over 80 years old, including the highly dependent, could be vaccinated in a month or two. Although this is a much lower percentage than the one expected by the Ministry of Health, which has set a vaccine immunity of around 70% for the summer, the Government hopes that the protection of the most fragile and also those most exposed to the virus allows for a easing of restrictions within four months. Thus, vaccination could begin to be distributed more widely, using museums and university campuses.

However, the deputy director general of Health Promotion, Carmen Cabezas, has insisted that any forecast or calculation that the Department of Health can make on the evolution of the campaign will only become a reality if there is availability of vaccines. "If the doses are arriving, we can achieve this 30% or 40%, taking into account that people over 69 years old with high and very high risk are approximately two million people and they need two doses", the expert said. In the short term, Cabezas hopes to protect at least a good part of the most vulnerable population: those over 80 years old.

On Thursday the vaccination of major dependents living in day centres began, which involves around 31,183 people, of which 5,202 (16.7%) have already received the first dose of vaccine. "We think we can reach all the centres in a period of two or three weeks", she said. Simultaneously, this week the vaccination of 43,923 people over 80 years old who are in home care has also begun. At this point, 1,815 (4.1%) have received the first dose.

"We will progressively reach all people over 79 years of age, which are about 363,438", Cabezas said. The vaccination strategy for this group, she said, will depend on the vaccines received. "If the ones we need [Pfizer and Moderna] arrive at the rate we expect, it could take about a month or two to vaccinate them", she predicted. In just over a week, a total of 14,466 vulnerable people out of the 438,544 people living in the country between high dependents and those aged 79 and over have received their first dose. That is, 3.2%.

On the other hand, the Secretary of Public Health, Josep Maria Argimon, has advanced that during the next few weeks the start of the vaccination of people who are between 45 and 55 years old will begin, with the AstraZeneca vaccine, as agreed last week with the Ministry of Health. In fact, this afternoon the directors of Health meet with their expert advisors to assess this issue.

4% of Catalans begin to be vaccinated

According to Cabezas, in Catalonia there are 321,268 people vaccinated with the first dose - 4.16% of the population - and 184,161 with the two doses, 2.38% of the population. Cabezas recalled the logistical challenge of the campaign: "We have to vaccinate almost 6 million people, twice, in a very short period of time".

At the end of last week Catalonia received 64,100 doses from AstraZeneca and 80,730 from Pfizer. According to Cabezas, these 140,830 doses represent the largest shipment of vaccines that has arrived since vaccination began. However, Moderna will not deliver any batches this week, and if sent next week, as planned, half would arrive, since the pharmaceutical company will deliver 32,000 doses and not the 60,000 agreed.

One of the key points to avoid these problems, as highlighted by Cabezas in statements to RAC1, is that Spain authorizes that the AstraZeneca vaccine is also administered to people between 55 and 65 years of age, as the United Kingdom already does. In other words: to remove the limitation that only allows to vaccinate those younger than 55 years old. "If this step is taken, vaccination could be accelerated", the doctor said.

In fact, Catalonia and other autonomous communities have asked the ministry to change its position on the matter. "We have no news yet", Cabezas admitted to the ARA. However, she believes that the proliferation of studies and trials such as the one carried out in Scotland, which support the use of AstraZeneca in the elderly, could make Minister Darias change her mind.

"Drastic reduction" of deaths in nursing homes

83.7% of the population living in nursing homes and 65.3% of social care workers have been vaccinated with the second dose. Also front-line health professionals - not counting those who have passed the covid less than six months ago - are achieving very high vaccination rates: 78.3% have received the first dose and 58.4% the second. "The effects of vaccination in these groups are increasingly visible. We see how cases have decreased in a very clear way", Cabezas insisted.

The secretary of Public Health, Josep Maria Argimon, stressed that the mortality rate in nursing homes has plummeted dramatically compared to last year thanks to vaccines. If in 2020 there were 16,000 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in geriatric homes - or 8,000 considering that just over 50,000 people live in these centres -, with the two doses administered to virtually all users, 50 victims per 100,000 inhabitants are being observed. "If we were to extrapolate annually, we estimate that vaccination prevents between 600 and 650 deaths per month", Argimon said.

The doctor has stressed that these figures are biased because if there were no vaccination, he believes that in 2021 there would not be a mortality rate as high as that of 2020, when a third of the fatalities in Catalonia lived in nursing homes. "Now we know how to deal with the pandemic in nursing homes, with sectorization, prevention and screenings", he said. However, Argimon pointed out that these data and extrapolations allow us to value the importance and effectiveness of vaccinating.

Perhaps it is necessary to revaccinate annually

In statements to RAC1, Cabezas also explained that it is possible that vaccination against covid may have to be repeated annually, as is done with the flu, to strengthen immunity and adapt it to new variants. The doctor has argued that the adaptation process will be simple and that at the moment the current vaccine responds "quite well" to the British variant and shows "worse results" with the South African, although it protects against the most severe cases. At the moment there is no data on how it works with the Brazilian one. If revaccination has to be made, he said, a single dose of the new vaccine will be administered.

As for the side effects of vaccination, he pointed out that they are mild, and include fever or muscle pain, in 10% of cases, and that they are more intense among young people and in the second dose because the immune response is strengthened. He explained, however, that in any case they are mild effects that pass after two or three days.

He also noted that nursing mothers can be vaccinated, although initially for prevention this was not the case, and that the situation of children at risk between 12 and 16 years old will be analyzed case by case to decide whether they can be vaccinated. He has advanced, in this sense, that they are already doing studies of the response in children from the age of five years old, and that surely a Catalan hospital will participate.