Valencia will administer more than 500,000 vaccine doses this week

Tuesday 17th August 2021 – XÀBIA AL DÍA with Mike Smith

The regional health ministry in the Comunidad Valenciana has reported that it is planning to administer some 500,665 doses of vaccine against COVID-19 over the next few days, the second highest batch in the region’s entire vaccination campaign. These doses will be most for the age group 12-19 years.

Up to now, vaccination efforts have been focused on teenagers aged 16 to 19 years. However, in those vaccination centres where these age groups are smaller and the process is more advanced, youngsters aged 14 to 15 have also been administered with the vaccine. From this week, the campaign will start administering jabs to those as young as 12, aiming to meet an objective agreed with the regional education ministry for students to begin the school year with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Of the 500,665 doses to be administered this week, 291,989 (58%) have been allocated to young people aged between 12 and 19, which is the last age range defined by the National Vaccination Strategy. The youngsters will be summoned via a telephone call or an SMS to the contact number registered for them in the SIP database (usually the mobile phone of the mother, father or guardian) and they must go to their vaccination centre on the day and time indicated.

Those aged under 16 have two options: attend with their parents or guardians, or attend alone but with a signed authorization to be vaccinated, which will come with the appointment details and can also be downloaded from the Sanidad website here. Those over the age of 16 can be vaccinated without the need for a companion.

Regional health secretary Ana Barceló explained that “the rest of the population groups have already completed the mass vaccination process, but those who belong to them and have not yet been vaccinated, for whatever reason, will have a new opportunity. Your health centre will call you back or send you an SMS. We are not going to leave anyone behind”.

She added that “those who have completed the holiday vaccination schedule will be summoned in the coming weeks, according to the preferences they indicated”, whilst admitting that she is facing the final stretch of the vaccination process “with as much hope as caution”. She said that “the figures show that the vaccination and the rules we have given ourselves are working and the indicators are improving, but we cannot throw all that effort away”.

The bulk of this week’s vaccines, some 404,838 doses, will be of the Pfizer-BioNTech type, of which 234,487 doses will be administered to young people in the 12-19 age group. The remainder – 170,531 doses – will be used for those who could not be vaccinated originally due to having an active infection, for new admissions to social and health residences, for professionals who joined the health system during this summer as well as second doses for those aged between 20 and 39 years, and for those for are pending vaccination, despite belonging to groups which have already been completed.

Some 94,100 doses of the Moderna type vaccine will be administered, of which 57,202 doses will be given to those aged between 12 and 19 years, whilst 34,144 doses will be administered to those aged between 20 and 39 years. The remainder is allocated to professional for have joined the health system and for those who have taken on the staff vaccination process.

Of the AstraZeneca vaccine, a total of 1,367 doses will be administered to those people over the age of 60 who have the second dose pending and who, for whatever reason, are between 60 and 65 years of age but have not been vaccinated.

Finally, 360 doses of the Janssen vaccine will be administered, mainly to those who must take international trips.