Spain Passes Milestone With Over 5 Million Now Fully Vaccinated
Health News
Published: 04 May 2021 13:53 CET
More than five million Spanish citizens have now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The latest updates show that 5,098,903 people have now received both of their vaccines, equating to 10.7% of the Spanish population.
The figures mean that the Government's initial targets that were set for the first week in May have now been reached. According to the forecasts, ten million people should receive the vaccine by the beginning of June.
These new figures come after Spain’s vaccination programme made headway this weekend with 766,003 doses being administered. This is the highest number of vaccines that have been given in just one weekend.
Over the weekend a further 16,353 Covid cases and 77 deaths were reported, lower than the same day last week when 19,582 positive test results were given. The rate of growth has also seen a drop of six points over the weekend with the current infection rate standing at 223.75 cases per 100,000 residents.
These new figures mean that since the start of the pandemic, Spain has recorded a total of 3,540,430 Covid cases resulting in 78,293 deaths.
In other news regarding the vaccination scheme, the Catalan Department of Health has started to administer the Moderna vaccine to the National Police and the Guardia Civil.
This comes after the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia instructed the Generalitat to guarantee that these groups will be vaccinated within ten days and with the same amount as the Mossos d’Esquadra.
Worldwide the coronavirus pandemic news continues, with 153 million people infected and 3.2 million deaths and to date, one billion doses of the various covid vaccines have already been administered in approximately 190 countries.
Recent news headlines also show that India is having a really hard time fighting the virus with a total of 20 million infections. Registering 368,147 new cases and 3,417 deaths in just one day.
It comes as a ship and its crew which arrived in Bilbao on Sunday were placed under investigation after it was discovered that four of the passengers were potentially infected with the Indian strain of the virus.
The people carrying the strain are currently not seriously ill but are being isolated in a hotel. A further 17 people and the rest of the crew are being kept in quarantine on board the ship as a precaution.
Travel and tourism is a major source of income across Europe and The European Commission has said that they want to reopen Europe's borders to all travellers who have been vaccinated against Covid, at the end of May.
This would mean that non-EU tourists could return to Europe for their holidays, however, much will depend on infection rates and the rollout of digital travel passes.
Countries such as France, Greece and Portugal are predicted to relax travel restrictions soon, following a drop in Covid cases.
Later this week, the UK is expected to announce which countries will be added to its traffic light system, particularly the 'green list' of safe travel destinations which will mean British travellers will not need to quarantine on their return.
It is unknown at this time whether Spain and its popular holiday destinations in the Balearic and Canary Islands will be included.
Source: Euro Weekly News
Image Credit: Ministerio de Sanidad
