Health minister, Salvador Illa (pictured above), said today he believed we were seeing the "beginning of the end" of the pandemia and that by the end of the summer he expected 70% of Spain's population to be vaccinated, generating enough herd immunity "not to see a definitive end, but to put us in a very different state" from our current one.
Illa was confident that the Spanish health authorities would be able to start administering vaccines at the beginning of January and "if all goes well" have a significant proportion of the Spanish and European population vaccinated within five or six months.
"By the end of the summer, 70% of the population will probably be vaccinated. This is a lot, but it won't mean the end of the pandemia, because this will only come about when we have immunised a high percentage of the population worldwide, which will take all of 2021 and a good part of 2022 too, according to the experts", he explained.
Nevertheless, the health minister warned people not to let their guard down too early and to continue employing protective measures like wearing masks and practising social distancing until a significant proportion of the population is vaccinated.
"There is still a great deal that we don't know about the level of immunity provided by the vaccines and we need to take precautions until the experts tell us we can start lifting restrictions," he added.
Although he assured the public that "there was no desire to prolong the state of emergency more than necessary", he warned of the danger of rushing to lift restrictions that might still prove necessary.
With regard to the upcoming Christmas celebrations, Illa believes that the measure adopted in Spain are the right ones because preventing loved ones from seeing each other at all "would have been counterproductive".
"What we have done is limit these get-togethers. Be careful! Precisely because they are your loved ones, keep it to a minimum. See the people who have been alone for months, the ones in care homes or who live far away. Get together just with those people", he recommended.
