Covid passports to enter certain establishments considered by authorities

Health authorities in Catalonia are considering bringing in Covid-19 passports to enter certain establishments after Spain’s Supreme Court gave the green light for the measure to enter bars and nightclubs in Galicia.

Secretary of public health Carmen Cabezas explained that the court ruling “opens a door” that she and her team will explore. 

“We have the obligation to assess all options,” she said, without getting into details and avoiding suggesting one way or another whether or not Catalonia would seek to adopt similar measures. 

Word of the potential measure being introduced comes as research group BIOCOMSC predicts that we could see a stabilization of new Covid-19 cases in October or a “minor” wave of new infections similar to the fourth wave. 

In a press conference on Wednesday, researcher Clara Prats called the return to classes for the new school year following the summer holiday period a “key point” in seeing how the pandemic will evolve. 

“The most likely scenario is that in early October we will either stabilize or new growth will start,” she explained. 

However, she pointed out that the overall pandemic situation is much better thanks to vaccinations. 

Vaccine campaign

On the inoculation campaign strategy, health secretary Carmen Cabezas did not say when mass vaccine centres will begin to close.

Instead, health authorities are now studying how to adapt resources to the current situation, as many people are already vaccinated, but all in all, not enough to ensure herd immunity, and the pace of jabbing has slowed down.

She suggested that one strategy could be to bring mobile equipment to areas where there are low rates of protection from the coronavirus, and acknowledged that there seems to be a lack of people who want to get the jab now. 

“The vast majority of people motivated to get it have already done so,” she admitted. 

The department of health is working on encouraging younger people to get inoculated with plans such as community outreach actions or vaccination points on university campuses. 

Elsewhere, third dose vaccination of immunosuppressed people has already begun. According to Cabezas, 2,829 additional vaccines have been administered between September 9-14.

Figures 

As of September 14, 2021, 5,815,338 residents have been given the first dose of the vaccine, 73.4% of the total population. Out of those, 4,922,958 have also been administered a second dose (62.3% of the total population). 5,577,751 residents are considered to be fully immunized (70.5%). 

Under 65s who have already had the virus are only required to have the first dose, and others have received a single-dose jab. Therefore, the % of two doses administered and % fully immunized do not match.