Spain announces 4th Covid vaccine for the entire population

The Minister of Health for Spain, Carolina Darias, announced today (Thursday) that there will be a fourth dose of vaccines against Covid-19 for the entire population, and not only for those over 80 years of age, as was being previously studied.

The Public Health Commission has made this decision and has set the time for inoculations to start in the autumn, as new vaccines are expected that will deal with new variants of coronavirus.

This announcement comes at a time when Covid cases remain at low levels compared to other stages of the pandemic, and with an incidence rate in those over 60 years old of 590, which is nothing compared to the 3,400 at Christmas.

In addition, occupancy of hospitals with Covid patients “is tremendously stable”, said Darias, staying around 5% even though the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants have gained ground in the last few weeks.

Darias emphasized that this success is thanks to the vaccination campaign. In fact, the risk of hospitalization in those over 60 years of age was reduced by 63% in the first two months of 2022, and that of death by 57% thanks to the vaccines.

The Ministry of Health has been studying administering a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccines beyond the three million Spaniards over 80 years of age or who live in nursing homes, since April.

At that time, the Vaccine Report indicated that the second booster shot was going to start being administered in May, but now it is known that it will be from autumn and to the entire population, which is several million more people.

As of now, 350,000 immunosuppressed people (people who have received transplants, are being treated for cancer, or are over 40 with Down syndrome) have already received their fourth vaccine.