PRESIDENT Pedro Sánchez has announced plans to end the 'State of Alarm' on May 9 this year and has given a deadline of the end of August for 70% of Spain's population to be vaccinated with both doses of the anti-Covid immunisation.
And this is the government's 'most conservative estimate' of how the situation will progress, hinting that improvements may even happen earlier.
National health authorities' goal is for 10 million people to have been immunised by the first week in June and 15 million, which would be around a third of the country's headcount, by the second week of that month.
By the week beginning July 19, as many as 25 million could be fully vaccinated, a figure expected to rise to 33 million, or seven in 10 residents, by the time summer ends.
Earlier, by the week beginning May 3, Sánchez (pictured) estimates Spain will have broken the five-million barrier.
The recent rubber-stamping of the Janssen vaccine, due to arrive in Spain after next week, is hoped to accelerate the roll-out, given that this new formula only requires one dose rather than two.
Spain has signed deals to receive a total of 87 million doses of the four different vaccine formulae – three of which need a double dose – between April and September.
From April to June, the country will receive 3.5 times as many doses as it did in the preceding three months, including 5.7 million single-dose Janssen vaccines before July.
Meanwhile, another formula developed in Germany, the CureVac, is due to be signed off for release in the next few weeks.
Current figures suggest that more people will have been fully vaccinated by the middle of April than the number of people infected with Covid-19, for the first time ever.
It remains unclear whether a person who has been inoculated can still catch the virus and pass it on – recent cases of 'outbreaks' in nursing homes in Spain have, reportedly, been asymptomatic in all those who have been immunised, even though, by definition, theirs is an age group where contracting Covid would normally be dangerous and potentially fatal.
This seems to show that a person who has been vaccinated can still catch the disease, but their immune system prevents the virus from causing them any harm.
Scientists are still trying to ascertain whether these cases can cause contagion to others in contact with them, although the creators of the Pfizer vaccine have recently said those who have received both doses 'do not infect anyone else'.
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