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“At the close of yesterday we had 868,951 vaccines administered, of which 603,585 are first dose and 265,366 second dose,” announced António Lacerda Sales.
The Undersecretary of State and Health – accompanied by the General Director of Health Graça Freitas, and Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo – recalled that the country is currently “above the average of the European Union, with 8.45 doses administered for each 100 inhabitants “, the EU average is 7.35.
The official also confirmed that, to date, “35% of the population aged 80 and over residing in mainland Portugal has already received at least one more dose of the covid-19 vaccine and 9% are already immunized with the two doses of vaccine “. . As for health professionals, the percentage of those vaccinated with the first dose rises to 70%.
Lacerda Sales also reported that the decision to postpone taking the second dose of the vaccine for seven days – which had already been advanced by the press – was taken by the General Health Directorate.
“The DGS 21/2020 standard for the Pfizer vaccine was updated today, extending the interval between taking the first and second doses from 21 to 28 days,” said the Undersecretary of State and Health, saying that this was a decision. taken “with broad technical consensus from DGS and Infarmed” and which will allow “vaccinating more than 100,000 people at the end of March”.
In the journalists’ questions phase, Lacerda Sales was asked about the possibility of Portugal adopting the vaccination passport already studied by other countries and by the European Union itself, and the Secretary of State did not want to give in, saying that it is a measure that “must be closely studied and considered”, for “legal reasons, data protection”, and also for “equity reasons.”
Regarding the announcement that the Minister of Health made today of the purchase of 38 million vaccines – a number that she admitted as “much more” than necessary, but which she considers supports other countries – Lacerda Sales only said that the purchase is made by “European central purchasing mechanisms, where a very significant set of doses already existed and which will be reinforced under other mechanisms of the European Union”
In a question addressed to the Director General of Health about the extent of pathologies that may be included in the priority list to take the vaccine, such as trisomy 21, Graça Freitas confirmed that people with this condition will be a priority and that their El team is open to “being able to analyze other groups that are proposed”.
When we were asked whether trisomy 21 should be included in the priority groups or not, we went on to study the impact of this disease on hospitalization and mortality, and having concluded that it was, we made this proposal to the working group and the office of the Secretary and the proposal was welcome, ”he said.
The general director of Health also said that the population to be vaccinated over 18 will be 3,500 people, while another 6,000 still have no indication to be vaccinated.
Graça Freitas was also questioned about the fact that prisons are no longer considered priority testing sites, highlighting that “prisons have had a regular testing program” and that “the fact that they are not up to the current standard does not mean that this is not Being done. “
