Madrid Opens “Auto” Vaccination Appointments To Over 16s As Rates Spike

July 13, 2021July 13, 2021 Madrid Metropolitan madrid covid, SPAIN COVID NEWS, spain news

The Madrid regional health authorities have extended it’s self appointment vaccination system campaign to the over sixteens in a race to head off the spike in infections.

More than 138,000 young people in the 16 to 24 age bracket made appointments in the few hours of the opening of the centres for vaccinations, yesterday, Monday 12th July.

Any person in this or previously called up age-brackets, and who are registered with the health authorities, can make their own appointments online here: Madrid Autocitación.

Since the auto vaccination campaign was launched on May 26th over 1.2 million people have made appointments this way.

There are now 42 centres open including 29 hospitals, 8 district medical centres and 6 private companies, including El Corte Inglés, Grupo Santander and Acciona which the public can choose from for their vaccination appointment.

The announcement came as the official Spanish government´s figures were released yesterday, showing a sharp rise in the number of infections to 368 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Just a few weeks ago the rate was 92.

The cause of the spike is the rise of the Delta variant, first detected in India, and which is considered more contagious and aggressive.

The variant is hitting the unvaccinated younger population disproportionately hard.

The breakdown of new infections by age group per 100,000 of population is:

Under 11 – 120.50
Aged 12-19 – 725.05
Aged 20-29 – 792.19
Aged 30-39 – 292.26
Aged 40-49 – 151.80
Aged 50-59 – 94.18
Aged 60-69 – 84.67
Aged 70-79 – 34.92
Over 80 – 42.55

Over the last week, over 100,000 new cases have been recorded whilst Madrid has seen its infection rate double, though no deaths have been recorded in the last three days.

Despite the rise in cases there has not been a similar rise in hospitalisations, indicative that the more vulnerable population groups have now been vaccinated.

There are just under 4,000 Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the country, representing just over 3% of hospital beds.

The governments Covid task group director, Fernando Simon, said the pace of increase had reduced in recent days and believes that the latest wave is nearing its peak.

“We are still in a situation where we have to reduce risks,” he told a press briefing, saying that the situation in Catalunia is the most alarming, having registered over double the national average of cases at 725 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Health officials are confident that the governments vaccination programme is having a marked effect on the new variants impact on the population.

Since the vaccination rollout started in January nearly 60% of the population of Spain has received at least one dose of the vaccine.

In a press conference today, the Madrid regional health minister, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, said that the rate for Madrid was 70% and 52% are now fully vaccinated.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, had earlier said the government is on target to reach the 70% “herd immunity” threshold by late August.

51,314,332 doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been distributed to the country´s 17 regional health authorities, of which 47,777,316 have been administered and 21,789,996 people have now been fully vaccinated, representing 45.9% of the total population.

To date Spain has recorded 3,971,124 cases of the coronavirus of whom 81,020 have died.