Plan to delay under 80s' second Covid vaccine doses for 8 weeks

Spain's Ministry of Health plans to delay the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine for those under 80 years old by eight weeks, according to what the Catalan News Agency (ACN) has learned.

This is one of the key issues up for discussion at Tuesday's Health Commission meeting.

The Catalan government is in favor of the move and has already asked the Spanish health ministry to introduce the delay, arguing that if the second dose is delayed, that will leave more vaccines available to administer a greater number of first doses to more people in a shorter space of time.

On Tuesday, April 13, Catalan health minister Alba Vergés announced that they would put forward the suggestion and urged Spain to follow the example of other European countries such as Italy and France.

While Spain's health minister, Carolina Darias, did not rule out the measure, she was not openly favorable either, reminding Vergés of the importance of second doses of Covid vaccines.

Vaccine rollout and latest Covid figures

Catalonia passed several landmarks in its vaccination rollout on Saturday, with over 20% of the 7,722,203 residents in the country having already received their first Covid-19 jab, and over 2 million doses administered in total.

As of April 18, 2021, 1,572,518 residents have been given the first dose of the vaccine, 20.36% of the total population. Out of those, 501,375 have also been administered the second dose (6.49% of the total population).

Official figures state there have been 629,830 confirmed Covid-19 cases (PCR tests and others including antibody tests) and a total of 21,683 people with or suspected to have had the virus have died since the beginning of the outbreak according to funeral homes.

Percentage of population vaccinated