More than 30,000 people have died in the last year in Spanish residences, according the figures that the government manages. And it is that for months the vulnerability of the residents, the lack of means and the problems to contain the virus have turned these more than 5,500 centers into the true “ground zero” of the pandemic.
For this reason, together with the first-line health personnel, the residences were the first group to receive the vaccine. Also for that, they are our “canary in the mine”: the place where we will see live and direct how the effect of vaccines bends the curves of infected, hospitalized and deceased. Although, if you look at the data, the term “we will see” is terribly imprecise: it no longer makes sense to speak in the future.
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The statistics of the Imserso show how, as we approach and exceed 150,000 fully vaccinated residents, contagions and deaths collapse. This is really good news.
A great success on a small scale
The end of the first quarter of 2021 is also, at least on paper, the end of the first great phase of vaccination. In other words, despite delays, logistical problems and technical stoppages, after Easter, more than ten million doses will have been put in the country.
The “moment of truth” for vaccination will arrive this spring and will put the health systems of the autonomous communities to the test. At the end of the day, if we want vaccines to 70% of the population over 16 years before summer we will need to put more than 400,000 daily doses for many weeks.
However, those 10 million doses are starting to have an effect and this is something worth looking at closely. Above all, because that decrease in contagion of which we were talking means that, During the first week of March, eight autonomous communities, Ceuta and Melilla have not had a single infected. Deaths have also dropped significantly, but the new cases are the ones that paint a really optimistic future.
And now that? Now it’s time to replicate this little great success on a national scale. Something very similar to what Israel has achieved: almost completely reopen the economy while watching the contagion curve fall uncontrollably. It’s not unreasonable that we can get it sometime in the summer, but it’s going to be a challenge.
Picture | Principality of Asturias
was originally published in
Engadget
for
Javier Jiménez and Javier Lacort
.
