Vaccination against covid will be accelerated again this August. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday that he will increase the rate because 3.4 million additional doses of Pfizer will arrive, which will allow anticipating “at the end of the month the target of 70% of the population with the complete guideline”. Immunization has slowed down in July.
Sánchez said that it will be possible to go from 13.1 to 16.5 million doses administered in August, but did not give details of the extraordinary purchase, which the Ministry of Health closed on Thursday. It is supposed to have been in the framework of the European Commission (EC) contracts with Pfizer. In June, for example, more doses arrived, anticipated than those bought for the last quarter of the year. The announcement surprised the regional presidents and councilors; some of them have been asking for more vaccinations for weeks. Yes, larger shipments of Moderna were expected in August.
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Pfizer delivered 1.7 million weekly doses in July; in June they reached 2.7 million. In addition, doses of AstraZeneca have stopped arriving, which Spain limited to people between 60 and 69 years old for fear of the adverse effect of serious thrombosis and for this reason it was decided not to inject Janssen to those under 40 years of age, apart from the fact that few doses arrive. Thus, vaccination has been more limited.
Even so, Spain claims to be one of the countries where progress is made the most. Until yesterday, 56.1 million doses had been administered and almost 27 million people have completed the vaccination, 56.8% of the population. 67%, 31.8 million carry at least one dose, according to Health data.
A young woman smiles and greets while receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.
The 70% goal no longer guarantees the group immunity that was envisioned
70% immunization, a goal set by the European Community, is equivalent to some 33 million Spaniards with two doses. Those 16.5 million injections that will be given in August according to the president include first and second doses. In fact, next week you will have to reach 70% with a dose to reach the immunization goal set by the end of the month with the completed schedule.
Vaccination in Spain
In any case, this goal of 70% of the immunized population has lost value, since it will not give group immunity as expected against the Delta variant of the virus. As this already widespread strain is more contagious (in Catalonia, for example, it is practically the only one that circulates), it forces us to look for a vaccination coverage of 85% or 90%, recalls Jeffrey Lazarus, professor at the University of Barcelona and researcher at ISGlobal , center for health studies promoted by the Fundació La Caixa.
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In the European Union, 70.5% of those over 18 years of age already have one dose and 57.3% both, according to the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC). This body figures that coverage (over 18) in Spain at 80.4% with one dose and 65.5% with both, similar to that in Portugal and only lower than those of Iceland, Ireland and Malta. The Johns Hopkins University in the USA, which analyzes the epidemic, places Spain as the 14th country in the world with the highest percentage of vaccinated population, 56.7%. It is surpassed, above all, by small countries (also Chile, Uruguay or Canada).
Malta reaches almost 75% of the population with the vaccination schedule completed and the United Arab Emirates, Seychelles and Iceland at 70%. Israel, despite being a test bed for Pfizer, has stalled at 59%; Great Britain, the first country to vaccinate, is at 56.6%; Germany and Italy are 51%, the US is close to 50% and France is 47%, among other countries.
Few countries have reached 70% coverage; going beyond 50% has already been seen to require greater efforts
Immunization has slowed or stalled in many countries. In Spain it can be attributed to dose limitation; in other countries there are various causes. Lazarus explains that some experts already anticipated that reaching 50% coverage in countries with a guaranteed vaccine supply was the easy part. Increasing that coverage will be slower, it will cost more, he says.
Because in some countries, it is difficult to reach population groups that, due to religious, cultural or political beliefs, are more alien to vaccination (without being all strictly deniers). In other cases, socioeconomically vulnerable populations are not reached. Or isolated rural population. And there are also marginal groups (such as slums, homeless, drug addicts …) Reaching these populations will force the administrations to bring the vaccines to where they live. In Spain it has begun to be done in some autonomies. There are countries that resort to prizes, to financial incentives for getting vaccinated. Or to restrict access to activities or places if you are not vaccinated, the so-called covid pass.
The response of young people is unknown, especially since it is a summer period and on vacation
Lazarus believes that Spain may have less problems than other states to achieve good coverage, but he sees a need for a plan to reach that population less likely to make an appointment for the vaccine. But, here there is a lot of acceptance of the vaccine. For example, health personnel are vaccinated 90% or more, when there are countries where half are. That is why France and other nations are betting on forcing them to give themselves the injections.
The question is whether young people will respond en masse to vaccination, as those over 50 have done. In Spain it seemed so at the beginning of the month, but during July little progress has been made among those under 30 years of age, in part due to the shortage of first doses. On average, 36% of those aged 30-39 years and 16% of those aged 20-29 (65% and 47% in the first dose) and very few under 20 years of age are immunized. There is a great disparity according to the autonomies, some with little vaccination for those under 30 years of age, according to Health data.
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Young people, Lazarus recalls, tend to have a lower perception of the risk against covid, they may think that passing the infection immunizes and it is not necessary to be vaccinated … It is added that it is the summer and vacation period. In Catalonia, this week there is already a reduction in the demand for appointments (150,000 were offered on Wednesday and they had not been filled even yesterday, when other weeks were exhausted in a day or a little more).
So it will be necessary to see if more doses are available in August, if those under 30 are widely going to be vaccinated or not. It also needs to finish immunizing 10% of Spaniards between 60 and 69 years old, 12% between 50-59 and 24% of those between 40-49.
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