Given that vaccine supply issues have seen the European Commission’s procurement programme massively criticised, Portugal’s ranking when it comes to vaccines completed is ‘pretty good’.
Says Expresso today, Portugal is the 6th European country with most vaccines completed.
Vis-a-vis the number of citizens vaccinated per 100,000, this, at 6.7, sees the country in 22nd place worldwide, with the top 10 being: Israel (87.1), United Arab Emirates (56.2), the United Kingdom (27), Jersey (Channel Islands – 25.7), United States (19.2), Bahrain (16.4), Chile (15.7), Malta (14.6), Serbia (14.7) and the Maldives (13.9).
At least 97 countries have begun their vaccination programmes against Covid-19, with more than 212 million doses already administered
This far, Portugal has received one million doses, says Expresso, and has so far administered 680,257 of them at a rhythm of roughly 21,600 per day.
In the EU vaccines are sent ‘simultaneously’ to all member states with the distribution being proportionate to the number of inhabitants in each country.
“Even so member states are vaccinating at different speeds”, says the paper.
Right now, Portugal is “slightly above but has always kept pace with the average of the 27 member states”.
The country has fully vaccinated 2.4% of the population, with 4.2% having received their first doses.
Malta (fully vaccinating 4.7%), Romania (3.1%), Serbia (2.7%), Spain (2.6%) and Lithuania (2.5%) have all managed better than Portugal but when this is compared to Israel’s (35.5%) it’s clear how slowly Europe is going.
Much larger countries like Australia and New Zealand have only just begun their roll-outs – and are already talking about vaccination passports ‘to ensure the safety’ of their communities.
The adoption of a policy for vaccine passports in Europe has up till now been discounted.
Meantime, Lusa reports that Portugal is planning to bring pharmacies into the vaccine roll-out when supply issues become less problematic (ie from April).
Talking after yesterday’s meeting with experts at Infarmed, health minister Marta Temido stressed that Portugal is planning to increase its testing protocol – by offering tests to all contacts of people who have tested positive, not simply those deemed to be most likely to have been exposed to risk. She added that Portugal remains the 7th country in Europe with the most tests conducted per million inhabitants.
