“Let's start and prepare – let's not wait for them [national health authorities] to take forever to decide things that are obvious – the third vaccination, especially for the first-line groups, as Israel is already doing,” said Miguel Albuquerque.

The head of the Madeiran executive, from the PSD/CDS coalition, said that Madeira would “begin to try to acquire vaccines to carry out the third vaccination” in the region.

The Government of Madeira has the autonomy to adopt some measures in this area, such as the mandatory use of masks, maintain restrictive measures and implement a screening operation for travellers entering the region, at airports.

“When the six months are over, in the risk groups, we will move forward with vaccination”, he stressed.

The Madeiran social-democratic government official reinforced that this region “will manage, without any problems”, to reach 85% of the population vaccinated by the end of September, fulfilling the established objective.

Miguel Albuquerque recalled that Madeira received, on the 28th, another 35,000 vaccines from Pfizer, with the arrival of three more batches scheduled: 17,000 (September 8th), 11,700 (September 13th) and 23,400 (September 20th).

“This means that we have all the conditions to achieve the goal of vaccinating 213,000 residents in Madeira, 85% of the population, by the end of September”, he stressed.

The president of the Regional Government also considered that the number of people who have rejected the administration of the vaccine against covid-19 in Madeira “is residual”.

“Obviously we cannot force people to be vaccinated, but this carries a risk for them and for others,” he stressed.