Pedro Sánchez announced last Monday that “very soon” the mask will no longer be mandatory indoors due to the “de-escalation horizon” that is being experienced with the coronavirus pandemic that put the entire planet in check just now two years ago.
The President of the Government has not yet specified the date, but has assured that it is a decision that will have to be made “very soon” with the consensus of the scientific community and the Autonomous Communities. “I don’t want to venture out because they (the scientists) are the ones who are going to propose the moment,” Sánchez assured around the dates that the Government is considering to make this decision in an interview on TVE.
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Meanwhile, although the accumulated incidence is showing a “downward” trend and the number of those admitted to the ICU is “decreasing”, the socialist leader recalled that these data are still “high”. However, a progressive “overcoming” of the pandemic is seen, he insisted before recalling that, this Tuesday, it is going to be proposed to lift the quarantines for close contacts to a positive, regardless of the status of the vaccination of those contacts.
It should be remembered that these quarantines were already eliminated for people vaccinated a few months ago, although Health recommended limiting their activities outside the home in the 10 days after the last contact with a confirmed case, and insisted on the “constant” use of the mask .
Vaccination in Spain, a great success
As Health has made public this week, the autonomous communities have administered until this Monday (February 28) a total of 92,591,078 doses of the vaccines against COVID-19 from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen, 99,759 of them during the last weekend. This represents 94.5 percent of those distributed, which amount to 97,997,077 units.
In addition, according to data from the Ministry, 24,091,562 third doses have already been administered: 10,611,080 from Pfizer (compared to 10,585,497 on Friday) and 13,480,482 from Moderna (compared to 13,445,557 on Friday). This means that 50.8 percent of the Spanish population has already received their booster dose, a percentage well above many European countries, which confirms the success of the process in Spain.
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In the case of the smallest, a total of 1,886,011 children between the ages of 5 and 11 have already received their first dose and 591,874 also the second, which means 57.4 percent with one dose and 18.0 with the full schedule, after the start of vaccination on December 15.
In short, all this means that a total of 38,430,626 people have already received the complete regimen in Spain. This translates into 91.1 percent of those over 12 years of age. On the other hand, a total of 39,022,500 people have received at least one dose, 92.9 percent.
Will a fourth dose of the vaccine be necessary?
Some countries, such as Israel, immediately opted for a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Will this reinforcement be necessary in Spain in the immunization process? Well, according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), at the moment there is “sufficient clinical evidence” to support the administration of a second booster dose of the covid vaccine in people over 70 or 80 years of age, as it is. happening in some European countries.
“For the EMA to issue a recommendation in this regard, sufficient clinical evidence would have to be seen first,” the head of the EMA’s Strategy for Biological Health Threats and Vaccines, Marco Cavalieri, told the media on Thursday. He has indicated that he “will continue to review all available data on the use of a second booster dose of mRNA vaccines.” “At this moment, there is not enough evidence in this regard,” he remarked.
Regarding Pfizer’s booster doses for adolescents over 11 years of age, Cavaleri has reported that Israel has provided safety data on almost 400,000 adolescents who had received this third dose, without “new safety problems” being identified. Similarly, she explained that the data reflects that a booster dose of Moderna’s vaccine “can be given as early as 3 months after the primary vaccination if necessary.”
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“The EMA has made it possible to reduce the interval between primary vaccination and the booster dose with this vaccine to three months,” he argued. “In the coming weeks, progress could be made towards the submission of a marketing authorization application,” she added of the ‘Evusheld’ monoclonal antibody cocktail, which is expected to be effective against the omicron subvariant BA.2.
Finally, Cavaleri has warned that despite the fact that the omicron wave “seems to lose some strength” in Europe, we must continue to be “cautious as this variant is highly transmissible and new subvariants may still emerge.” “It is clear that people who do not get vaccinated suffer the harshest consequences of COVID-19. We encourage all EU citizens to get vaccinated or, if they qualify, to get a booster shot without further ado. delay,” he concluded.
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