Vaccination against Covid-19 should reach 280 children today, about 45% of the 600 eligible to take the vaccine, said the Assistant Secretary of State and Health, António Lacerda Sales, in Caldas da Rainha.
“We can close today very close to the 45% of vaccinated in this range from 5 to 11 years old”, said António Lacerda Sales, alluding to the “30 thousand appointments” registered for this Sunday.
The Secretary of State, who this morning visited a vaccination center in Caldas da Rainha, estimated that, after “250 children” had been vaccinated by the end of Saturday, the number should rise today to “280”.
Numbers that, according to the Secretary of State, will make it possible to meet “all the conditions” to, on Monday, “start the school year safely”, given the anticipation that was made of vaccination, both for children and “teachers and not teachers”.
Asked whether the vaccination should have started earlier, so that the period of effectiveness of the vaccine occurred before the start of classes, Lacerda Sales acknowledged that “the period of 14 days is very important”, but refuted that there was a “delay” in the application of the vaccine, stating that he was “perfectly safe and convinced that this time is the time necessary to start the school year safely”.
All the more so, recalled the Secretary of State, that there will be the possibility of continuing, between the 5th of February and the 13th of March, “to vaccinate second doses and first doses of children who were not vaccinated during this phase”.
The official also stated that “as soon as possible, higher education teachers will also be vaccinated”.
Lacerda Sales was speaking in Caldas da Rainha, at the end of a visit to the Covid-19 Vaccination Center installed at the Arneirense Association, after hours before having visited another center, in Peniche, both in the district of Leiria.
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