100,000 vaccines a day in April, António Costa promises
Portugal will receive 1.8m doses in April
Expresso reports that the Prime Minister, António Costa, promised this Saturday an acceleration of the supply of vaccines against COVID-19. “We will receive 1.8 million vaccines in April, which is as much as we had received in January, February, and March together,” said António Costa. “At least 100,000 vaccines a day will have to be administered,” said the prime minister.
Speaking at the beginning of the school vaccination campaign, which he said was running smoothly, António Costa acknowledged that the vaccination process will have “demanding logistics”, but he said he believed it would be possible to achieve it. “It is good to test (the logistics of rapid vaccination) now for when we start to open the country things will go the best way. This is a new stage because it is on a scale”, he stressed.
Speaking to the media from a school in Odivelas, the prime minister also assured that by the end of March more than 80% of Portuguese people over 80 will be vaccinated.
António Costa also indicated that in May the Portuguese Government expects to receive “much more than 1.8 million vaccines”, which will make it possible to speed up the vaccination of the population before the summer.
Portugal: 1m have had first dose
By coincidence it was announced yesterday that “the barrier of one million first doses of vaccines administered against COVID-19 has already been overcome in Portugal today”, a task force source coordinated by Vice Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo told Lusa News Agency.
The same source added that “at the same time, the value of about half a million second inoculated doses will be reached”, with last Thursday being “the day with the highest volume of doses administered at 50,000”.
Portugal started vaccinating the population on 27 December, 2020. On the first day 4,534 people were vaccinated.