This was “a special weekend” for the vaccination process against Covid-19 in Portugal. Vaccination of teachers and school staff started this Saturday, continued this Sunday, and Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, Minister of Education, Inês Ramires, Secretary of State, and Gouveia e Melo, coordinator of the vaccination plan against Covid-19, were in Faro to see how the Pinheiro e Rosa Secondary School became a vaccination center.
Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, who, upon arrival, was received by representatives of the Teachers' Union of the South Zone, asking for more investment in the education sector, walked through the school corridors, greeting the many dozens of teachers who were summoned to receive the vaccine this Sunday.
At the national level, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues said yesterday, there were 44 thousand vaccines administered. For the minister, this "is an important number" that "gives hope" and that should be "multiplied by two" this Sunday.
In the Algarve, revealed Paulo Morgado, president of the ARS, on Saturday 2400 people were vaccinated.
«Yesterday, among people who had an appointment, about 20% did not show up, which is a little less than the most pessimistic could expect. There are always people who, for various reasons, cannot come, but today we are recovering the influx of yesterday. Only today, at the end of the day, will we have this perception, but people joined within expectations», said the official.
In total, revealed Paulo Morgado, «about 4700 people in the Algarve will have received SMS to come to the vaccination this weekend».
At the Pinheiro e Rosa Secondary School, the atmosphere was one of «serenity», a word repeated several times by Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, who asked several times if «everything went well?». The answer was always positive.
After walking through the school corridors, to the recovery room, where teachers and staff, after receiving the vaccine, must wait 30 minutes to assess whether there are adverse reactions, the Minister of Education called on the Portuguese to accept and adhere to the vaccination against Covid-19, when they are called, not least because it is a “highly altruistic” gesture.
"It is also through this altruism that we are vaccinated for ourselves, but also for our neighbors, our relatives, our parents, our children, our students and those who work with us," he said.
For his part, Gouveia e Melo, coordinator of the Covid-19 vaccination plan, considered that this weekend is "another step" of a staircase that ends with the immunization against Covid-19 and that "there are many steps which we still have to overcome».
The official said he was "very happy" with the way the weekend went, not least because the schools "are part of the different solutions we have to test [as vaccination spaces] and, once tested, they worked very well and are work very well».
This, emphasizes Gouveia e Melo, «gives confidence that we have several solutions to scale the process, when necessary, to more than 100 vaccines per day» and that, in the Algarve, it can amount to 2000 daily vaccines.
A process that will need more health professionals nationwide. "How many? That's what we are finding out at the moment», he added.
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