Spain’s PM: 70% of population fully vaccinated by end of summer

Madrid, Apr 6 (efe-epa).- Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez on Tuesday said 33 million people, or 70% of the country’s population, would be fully vaccinated by the end of August according to “conservative” estimates.

As with many European Union countries, Spain’s rollout has been relatively sluggish so far, with just 2.85 million people fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost nine million people have received one dose of the jab.

The Socialist Party prime minister told a press conference that five million people would be fully vaccinated within one month and that the figure would increase to 25 million by 19 July.

He added that the government did not plan to extend the current state of alarm, which has been in place since 25 October, beyond 9 May.

The emergency mechanism gives legal underpinning for regional authorities to place restrictions on free movement or enforce measures such as nightly curfews.

“We want the 9th of May to be a full-stop to this state of alarm and we’re working towards that,” he said.

Sánchez said Spain, which was hit hard in the early days of the pandemic, was due to receive 87 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines between April and September.

He claimed the country could administer 3.5 million vaccines a week.

“We’re going to combine our efforts to vaccinate, vaccinate and vaccinate without pause,” he added.

The prime minister blamed AstraZeneca for the delays to the EU’s vaccine rollout.