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ARCHIVED - Vaccination campaign in Spain hits a ceiling
Vaccination rate drops as the pandemic situation improves in Spain
After getting off to a stellar start, the vaccination campaign in Spain has slowed noticeably in recent weeks and appears to have reached a plateau, with 91% of the population over the age of 12 now double jabbed. While this figure is comparable with many other European countries, it has hardly budged at all in the last 10 days, leading experts to believe that the campaign has reached a “ceiling.”
On the surface, a 91% coverage might seem relatively impressive, but when one considers the entire population of Spain, the number drops significantly, meaning that 20% of people aren’t immunised. Of course, children under the age of 5 aren’t eligible and the Spanish government is pushing for the introduction of Novavax for those who are unable to take the other jabs, but that still leaves a good percentage of people who are choosing to avoid inoculations for various reasons.
According to the president of the Spanish Society of Immunology, Marcos Lopez Hoyos, “the ideal is to be able to vaccinate 100% of the population,” but he acknowledges that this will be an almost impossible feat. “The 9% of people that remain are difficult to convince,” he admitted.
The biggest fear of the experts is the emergence of a new variant just as Spain is emerging from under the cloud of the sixth wave. The fact remains that while Omicron is widely believed to cause less serious symptoms, more deaths have still been reported as a result of this variant than during other waves, and that those becoming very ill are largely unvaccinated. The data actually show that the rate of unjabbed people aged 30 to 59 who were admitted to the ICU since December is seven times higher than vaccinated.
Conflicting information and moving goalposts have no doubt sown a seed of distrust, and the uptake on the booster jab is even more dismal, even though several communities are now offering the shot without appointment at walk-in centres. According to the European Centre for Disease Control, 49.5% of the Spanish population have received the third jab, the vast majority of whom are older or vulnerable. The numbers drop off sharply among young adults, who also register the worst figures for the second dose.
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