After a slow start, various European countries (Portugal included) have caught up in race to get their populations vaccinated against Covid-19
A text in Expresso this week that still refers to ‘non-vaccinated people transmitting the virus’ (when it has been established that fully-vaccinated people do too) stresses that 73% of Portugal’s resident population has now received at least one dose of vaccine, while 63.5% are fully-vaccinated.
“These numbers are among the highest in the European Union, and overtake vaccination percentages in the UK, Israel and the United States – a country where level of resistance to the vaccines is quite high and is complicating the whole process”, says the paper.
Only Malta and Denmark come ahead of Portugal – the former with an impressive 91% of its population fully-vaccinated.
It is here one has to factor in that Malta has only 500,000 inhabitants. Denmark has 5.8 million. Portugal’s 10.3 million is low on the scale of many European populations, but its listing, in eighth position in a table of 30 countries, is still no mean achievement.
Israel, which was publicised in the early days as ‘leading the world’ when it came to its vaccination rollout is in 19th position, with 67.3% of its population having received one dose of vaccine, and over 60%both doses, while the UK is in 14th place with 69.4% having received one dose, and just under 60% fully jabbed.
A third dose of vaccine is already on track to be offered the over-60s in Israel from next week, while the UK has said it too will be rolling out a third dose for the most vulnerable from September. The United States has said a third booster shot will be administered to people who compromised immune systems, but hasn’t specified when.
Portugal meantime has made no decisions regarding a third dose of vaccine.
