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The government expects to have between 15 and 20 million people of its population of 47 million vaccinated against the virus in June.
Araceli Hidalgo, 96, a resident of the Los Olmos nursing home, receives a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on December 27, 2020, in Guadalajara, becoming the first person to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in Spain. Image: AFP.
MADRID – Spain will establish a registry of people who refuse to be vaccinated against the new coronavirus and will share it with other member states of the European Union, although it will not be made public, Health Minister Salvador Illa said on Monday.
During an interview with La Sexta television, Illa reiterated that vaccination against the virus – which, as in most EU countries, began in Spain during the weekend – would not be mandatory.
“What will be done is a record, which will be shared with our European partners … of those people who have been offered it and have just turned it down,” he said.
“It is not a document that will be made public and will be made with the utmost respect for data protection,” he added, noting that businessmen or the general public would not have access to it.
The proportion of Spaniards who are unwilling to receive the COVID-19 vaccine has plummeted to 28% in December from 47% last month, according to a survey published last month.
The survey by the state-funded research institute CIS found that 40.5% of respondents are willing to receive the jab, while 16.2% would if it is shown to be “trustworthy.”
Spain has been one of the countries in Europe most affected by the pandemic, with the death toll from the virus exceeding 50,000 on Monday, according to the Health Ministry.
Almost 1.9 million people have been infected.
The government expects to have between 15 and 20 million people of its population of 47 million vaccinated against the virus in June.
“The way to defeat the virus is to vaccinate all of us or the more the better,” Illa said.
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