The “berbicacho” related to the Astrazeneca vaccine, which is no longer administered to children under 60 years of age, it will not postpone the goal of vaccinating 70% of the Algarve by the end of August. This is the conviction of Paulo Morgado, president of the Regional Health Administration, who reinforces that the region has the capacity to vaccinate 3000 people a day.
At a press conference, the official said that, despite the “berbicacho” – as António Costa called it – with the Astrazeneca vaccine, that goal “continues to be possible. This week, Janssen vaccines begin to arrive and will continue to arrive progressively more vaccines from this brand, which is a single dose vaccine».
In addition, “we continue to rely on the vaccines we already have, including Astrazeneca, which we will continue to use, because that is the recommendation, in the population over 60 years old”.
Although there is a "need to adjust the plan, changing from one vaccine to another, there will not be a big impact on the vaccination plan".
Paulo Morgado stressed that, in the Algarve, vaccines are being administered at "a rate identical to that of other regions and we are going to reach identical values of vaccination coverage".
According to the president of the ARS, «we will need to vaccinate 300 thousand people. If we vaccinate at the rate of 3000 people a day, in 100 days we can reach a coverage rate of 70%».
Until yesterday, Paulo Morgado revealed, 82.209 vaccines were administered in the Algarve, with 23.423 people who have already received the two doses and 58.772 who have received the first dose, which corresponds to 5% of the total population of the region.
The third phase of vaccination, at national level (and in the Algarve) should start, according to the official, «at the end of April, beginning of May. It will be a process by age group, from the oldest to the youngest and that will thus cover the adult population».
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