Portugal’s health authorities will begin a mass vaccination effort next weekend and during the second weekend in April, according to O Jornal Económico.
“The idea is that 200,000 people be vaccinated in these two weekends, or even more than that,” said political commentator and state councilor (advisor) Luís Marques Mendes. He also added that teachers will be the first to benefit from this vaccine, according to the publication.
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The news came out as part of Mendes’s report that Portugal is set to begin receiving the initial shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the second week of April, as he told SIC on Sunday. Mendes said that, in total, 1.25 million doses are set to be delivered by June.
This is big news for Portugal because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is single-dose: “1.25 million doses means that 1.25 million Portuguese will be vaccinated. This vaccine will vaccinate more people in two and a half months than the other three [vaccines] in three months,” said Mendes, according to the news outlet.
The Direção-Geral de Saúde (DGS – General Health Directorate) reports that to date a total of 1,338,331 people have been vaccinated, 902,527 have received the first dose and 445,802 received both doses.
