Spain and Germany begin vaccinating against covid-19 in January

Spanish government president Pedro Sánchez said on Sunday that Spain and Germany will be the only European countries to have a structured plan to start vaccinating the population against covid-19 starting in January 2021.

According to the explanations of the government leader, who spoke to the media after the virtual meeting of the G20, the Spanish vaccination plan must be approved by the Council of Ministers as early as Tuesday and is based on five lines of action, among which the definition of 13 thousand vaccination points and a unique national strategy, developed by a multidisciplinary group of experts.

“Every year in Spain 10 million people are vaccinated against influenza. Therefore, the National Health System is considered ready to achieve this goal. An example: this year, in eight weeks, 14 million people have been vaccinated”, Sánchez said, assuring that priority groups will have access to the vaccine.

At the same time, the head of the Spanish government said that the country is already creating the logistical conditions to guarantee “the necessary temperature” for storing the vaccine, which, in the case of BioNTech / Pfizer, requires a temperature of minus 70 degrees.

The European Union has already signed contracts with the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Janssen and BioNTech / Pfizer for one billion expandable doses, the signing with CureVac will be imminent and negotiations with Moderna for 400 million additional vaccines are in a very phase. advanced. Spain, according to Sánchez, will be responsible for 10% of these doses that the European Union can make available to member countries.

Official figures for the covid-19 pandemic in Spain indicate 1 556 730 cases and 42 619 deaths. Data announced on Saturday by the Spanish Ministry of Health reported 15 156 new infections and 328 more deaths, despite the fact that transmission of the virus has been decreasing for at least 11 days and the cumulative incidence has been 419 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants.

However, Sánchez pointed out that the cumulative incidence of cases of the new coronavirus is less than 400 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days, a number that will be released on Monday and which, for the government leader, demonstrates the effectiveness of the restrictions imposed by the state of emergency in force in the country.

Spain is the sixth country in the world in terms of cases since the start of the pandemic and is only behind the United States (more than 12 million), India (more than nine million), Brazil (more than six million), France (2 , Millions) and Russia (more than two million).