The new Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, has asked the autonomous communities (regional Governments) to expand measures and be as strict as possible against the third wave of Covid to bend the curve quicker, provided that these restrictions are within the framework of the current state of alarm, and of the national strategy agreed between the Ministry and the autonomies.
"I call on the autonomous communities to expand the measures as much as possible within the national strategy to contain the spread of the virus, so we are able to downturn the data more quickly," she said in a press conference to the media after visiting a factory of hospital materials in Madrid, accompanied by the Minister of Tourism, Reyes Maroto, earlier today.
As she pointed out during her appearance at the Health and Consumption Commission of the Congress of Deputies last Friday, Darias lamented that, despite the "downward trend in the number of infections”, it is not "quick enough" as the health authorities want.
Asked about the Government's objectives on vaccination, Darias reiterated that the goal is to ensure that 80% of people over 80 years of age and health personnel, are immunized against the virus " in March at the latest", and that 70% of the adult population as a whole will be inoculated by the summer.
“I know it is a complicated challenge, but as the Government of Spain, we are committed to that challenge. We maintain our objectives”, she insisted, recalling that, once the second phase of vaccination begins, it will be possible to progress faster, since it will be the citizens who go to the health centres to receive the injection, and not the other way round as now.
As detailed, Spain will receive up to 2.3 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in February, to which should be added those of AstraZeneca, approved last Friday by the European Commission. “The AstraZeneca vaccine is going to be very important. We hope that the doses of the agreement are maintained. Every time we are going to have an increased number of doses”, she confirmed.
It has also come to light that Spain will soon start to receive the Janssen vaccine. "We all want the pace to be faster, but don’t forget, it was only a month ago that vaccines first arrived in our country," she said.
Talking about the Becton Dickinson hospital supplies factory that she visited today, Darias stressed that it is "extremely important that these companies contribute to strategically position Spain in the manufacture of sanitary products which are so in demand during the pandemic." This plant, along with two others that the company has in Spain, designs low dead volume syringes, which are used to take advantage of the sixth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vials.
