Spain caresses the vaccination target set for August 19: 69.5% of the Spanish population is immunized against the coronavirus, representing 32.99 million people. However, this percentage is actually higher, since the serum cannot be administered to children under 12 years of age. Taking this into account, the Spanish population that has wanted to administer the vaccine is almost 80% (78.3%).
These percentages are important in order to achieve the new vaccination milestone. Experts have already said that 70% will be insufficient to talk about group immunity. Now we have to look at 85% and this means that, if children under 12 cannot be vaccinated, practically the rest of the population should be vaccinated. The figure that Spain will reach throughout September will be 86.5% of those immunized over 12 years of age (76.8% if one looks at the entire population).
Meanwhile, the reinforcements that may be needed are already being considered. Tomorrow, the Interterritorial Council will approve a third dose for those citizens with weakened immune systems, but sooner or later it seems that more people will have to go through the booster dose. A week ago, the Ministry of Health bought half a million doses of Sanofi and yesterday it bought 2.2 million of Novavax, the vaccine manufactured in Galicia by the Zendal Group.
Both vaccines, along with the Spanish Hipra that began its clinical trial a few days ago, are based on proteins and it is this technology that the Ministry of Health works with in the face of a potential reinforcement of vaccination to the general population. Novavax deliveries are scheduled for late 2021 and early 2022, at a rate of 679,972 doses in November 2021, 810,850 in December and 793,263 by January 2022.
In the agreement reached between Novavax and the European Commission on August 5, it is expected that the total figure of 100 million doses can be reached. Now a first tranche of 20 million has been executed and the rest can be accessed but always in tranches of 20 million.