Those over the age of 60 years of age are to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the beginning of June, according to the task force coordinator of the vaccination plan Henrique Gouveia e Melo.

“When we vaccinate the entire population over 60, in reality, we will - according to the death related data - be protecting 96.4 percent of the people who died as a result of this pandemic. We will reach this value between the last week of May and the first week of June,” said the official at the Infarmed meeting in Lisbon, which brings together experts, members of the Government and the President of the Republic to assess the epidemiological situation.

According to the data, 96.4 percent of people who died as a result of the new coronavirus were over 60-years-old.

Henrique Gouveia e Melo also reaffirmed the goal of protecting 70 percent of the population by mid-summer. “We will reach 70 percent of the population, which is equivalent to having all of the people over the age of 30 vaccinated, between July and August, with the first dose,” he explained.

With 1.9 million vaccines available to administer in April, the task force coordinator also said that the programme is “in a week of transition” and that “a new strategy” will be underway.

“From now on, we will do pure age sequencing, using 90 percent of the vaccines for this and leaving 10 percent for other diseases not related to age and that can reach much younger populations”, said Henrique Gouveia e Melo.
The task force coordinator also specified the current coverage levels for the different groups.

“In those more than 80 years of age we are already above 90 percent, between 50 and 80 years old with type 1 comorbidities we are above 80 percent, in health professionals we are at 96 percent, in essential services in 99 percent and in schools in 23 percent”.

“In this quarter, we will have an average vaccine administration of around 97,000 per day. Following this accounting, about 2.6 million vaccines have already arrived in the country and approximately 2.1 million doses have been administered until last Sunday: 1.5 million first doses, that is, more than 15 percent of the population, and 600,000 with a second dose ”, he reinforced.

Finally, the task force coordinator pointed out that “nobody is left behind” in the vaccination process against Covid-19, noting that, in addition to centralised scheduling and self-scheduling, a person may also resort to the “parish council, police station or fire station ”as an“ intermediate step ”for scheduling via the Internet.

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Originally from the UK, Daisy has been living and working in Portugal for more than 20 years. She has worked in PR, marketing and journalism, and has been the editor of The Portugal News since 2019. Jornalista 7920

Daisy Sampson