More than 70% of the target population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19

The Minister for Health, Carolina Darias, stressed at the meeting of the plenary session of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS), held today, that these important figures have been achieved thanks to the fantastic work carried out by all those who make up the National Health System.

Likewise, as Minister Darias announced, this week the Regional Governments will receive 4.7 million doses of mRNA vaccines (3.4 from Pfizer and 1.3 from Moderna), as a result of the increase in vaccines in August announced by the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, at the 24th Conference of Regional Presidents.

In this regard, the minister has publicly acknowledged the work being done by the health teams and encouraged them to continue encouraging the vaccination campaign, opening new points without prior appointment for all those who wish to be vaccinated and with self-appointment systems, as is already being implemented by the regional governments.

The minister stressed that reaching and exceeding vaccination targets in all population groups is key to reducing the risks of new epidemic waves and that at this time, when mRNA vaccines are more widely available, opening up vaccination extensively contributes to advancing this process.

At today's meeting, several regions explained that they have started to bring forwards the vaccination of people who have overcome the disease, compared to the six months initially foreseen. Health teams are also working to cover the most vulnerable groups still unvaccinated, especially those over 40 years of age without any doses or without completing the course.

All these measures allow for active recruitment for second doses for those people who have not been notified, for whatever reason, or who delayed their appointment in their Region due to being on holiday. In addition, REGVACU's information systems are set up to record data on people who have received vaccine doses in different communities.

The overall pace of vaccination remains excellent in Spain. This is a collective success for the country, as Minister Darias emphasised, which places us as the leader in terms of people vaccinated, among the ten countries in the world with the highest percentage of the population with at least one dose.

Epidemiological situation

Today's meeting also analysed the epidemiological situation, which shows that the 14-day Cumulative Incidence (CI) of COVID-19 peaked in this latest epidemic wave in the last week of July and since then there has been a steady and progressive decrease in the number of cases reported daily.

The 14-day CI as of yesterday was 399 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 528 last week, a reduction of almost 25%.

The downwards trend is being observed in all age groups and although it is more rapid in the younger age groups, 12-19 and 20-29 years, these, having lower vaccination coverage, continue to show much higher incidences than the rest of the population, with around 800 cases per 100,000 people in 14 days.

The observed downwards trend presents a favourable picture, but despite this, incidence rates remain high, leading to high numbers of people in both general hospitalisation (7.8%) and Intensive Care Units (20.7%), although there has been a slight decrease in these data compared to last week.

The current hospitalisation rate is 2.5% of cases, compared to the post-Christmas wave of 7.1%. In the case of ICUs, 0.2% are currently admitted compared to 0.7% in the same period. And, 0.1% die compared to 1.7% previously.

Despite the favourable evolution observed in recent days and the good prospects of the vaccination campaign, the observed incidence is still very high and prudence and responsibility, both regional and individual, remain key in the current situation in order to bring the incidence rate down to acceptable levels.

More than 19 million DCCs

On the other hand, once the transitional period established by the European Regulation has ended, after which the issue of the Digital COVID Certificate (DCC) is a right for all European citizens, the minister informed the CISNS councillors about the current situation.

In Spain, 19.65 million certificates have already been issued, of which 18.88 million are for vaccinations, 428,484 for recovery and 341,031 for diagnostic tests.

Non official translation