SCS to continue vaccinations over Easter and asks that you don’t miss appointment
The Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) are not stopping vaccinations at Easter, as they want to continue with the progress that they are making into the state vaccination plan, but they are concerned that many people will want to change or cancel appointments because they are away for a few days.
According to the coordinator of the Canary Island vaccination plan, Begoña Reyero, “A vaccination is not easy to reschedule. It's not like a date at the salon. We are facing the goal of vaccinating two million people as quickly and smoothly as possible, so having hundreds of people wanting to change their date, is not easy to solve.”
He added that he hopes that people will keep their appointments, not just during this period, but all the time, especially because the doses have a limited conservation period and aren’t easy to store, so when people just don’t show up for their inoculation, it generates a logistical problem and an unnecessary waste of the vaccine which someone else could have had.
Reyero said that 70,000 doses are expected next week, a sum that will double in April, allowing mass vaccination to begin, a speed that will be widely exceeded from the second half of April. In fact, the progressive increase in vaccine shipments will begin to be noticed as of next week, when 23,000 doses are expected from Pfizer, 10,000 from Moderna and 40,000 from AstraZeneca.
Regarding the resumption of the administration of AstraZeneca, which was only suspended for eight days, Reyero pointed out that there has been no greater rejection. “At the moment the coverage has been magnificent in all population groups. It is true that there have been doubts and there have been people who have been afraid, but that reluctance has disappeared as information supported by scientific evidence has been given. People are believing in the vaccine, as they are aware of the importance of getting vaccinated," he acknowledges.
Also the response of 60 to 65-year-olds being called to be vaccinated with AstraZeneca is very good. "With younger people we do not know what the response will be like, as they seem to be more cynical and guided by social media" says the coordinator who hopes that logistics will be simplified with mass vaccination after Easter.
This is when, depending on the number of vaccines received, new vaccination points will be opened in Infecar and in the Gran Canaria Arena and the Recinto Ferial in Tenerife, that will be added to those already existing in ExpoMeloneras in Gran Canaria, in the Las Madres de La Laguna citizen center, in the Primary Care Managements of the capital islands and in the four large hospitals of the archipelago, in addition to the South Tenerife Hospital and the Los Realejos exhibition centre, which will open next Monday.
From mid-April the first delivery of Janssen's single-dose vaccine, the fourth to receive approval for use in the European Union, will arrive in Spain, and the Ministry of Health has already addressed their inclusion in the vaccination campaign.
It is proposed to use these differently from the other ones, and it will not be assigned to any priority group. That is, this vaccine will be used in all population groups: both young and old, as the data support its efficacy in people over 60 years old, and it has achieved good results in the face of current variants. Obviously the main difference is, you only need one jab before you become immune to Covid-19.