How does vaccination work now? No priority sectors, only age counts

BarcelonaSprint in the vaccination of the Catalan population with the arrival of the first 24,000 Janssen vaccines. The primary care centers (CAP) began on Thursday to inoculate the doses of the European subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which have the particularity and the advantage of being of a single dose: people who receive them do not need second injections to complete their vaccination schedule as the vaccines of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca do, and achieve the maximum degree of protection about 14 days after the injection.

At the moment, Janssen is only administering to the population aged 70-79, but the health department hopes to finish vaccinating this age group soon - 42% have already received a dose from Pfizer in the last two weeks - so that they can be used in the mass vaccination strategy. By June at least all over-65s need to be protected to prevent them from falling ill. 

Since yesterday, Catalonia already inoculates the four vaccines authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The immunisation criteria have been harmonised between the Catalan Health Department, the Spanish Ministry of Health and the other autonomous communities, and the most important parameter is age. While at the beginning the criteria were hybrid - care homes and health professionals -, now belonging to a specific group is not a criterion, but rather age is given priority: teachers, policemen and supermarket cashiers will be vaccinated according to their age and not their occupation.

However, the instability in the arrival of the doses - only Pfizer delivers the vials on a regular basis - and the temporary suspensions of use by AstraZeneca and Janssen due to alleged safety problems - a few rare cases of thrombosis have been detected among the vaccinated - greatly reduce the Health Department's room for manoeuvre.

280.000 more doses from Pfizer

In Spain, the AstraZeneca vaccine could initially only be given to people who were over 55, and so as not to slow down the strategy, the essential groups were included. The result: very young people, such as 30-year-old teachers, received the vaccine before their 80-year-old grandparents. Now, however, this vaccine can only be given to people between 60 and 69 years of age and that young population does not know when or if they will be able to receive the second dose. Moderna, on the other hand, is reserved for hospital settings and seriously ill people, such as cancer patients or those on dialysis.

Pfizer is the only vaccine that is used exclusively according to age and in descending order. The Minister of Health, Alba Vergés, announced yesterday that the American laboratory will send 280,000 doses next week, a shipment that represents a considerable increase over previous weekly deliveries (193,000). A large part (180,000) will be destined to second doses for the over-80s. So far 24.7% of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine and only 9% is fully immunised.