Covid passport scheme set to be extended
The measure has led more than 100,000 people to get the jab in the Valencia region
LEGAL authority to extend the Covid passport scheme in the Valencia region until February 28 has been requested from the Regional Supreme Court (TSJCV).
Regional president Ximo Puig announced the decision after his government’s interdepartmental Covid-19 committee met yesterday (Thursday).
The requirement to show a Covid certificate to enter hostelry, leisure and sporting establishments has motivated 132,000 unvaccinated people to receive their first dose, 2% of the region’s population, he noted.
Sr Puig said the priority is to speed up administration of booster doses and vaccination of children, and ‘restore the functioning’ of primary attention ‘beyond Covid-19’.
The vaccination drive includes opening large spaces at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia and the field hospital at Alicante general on January 31, adding to others in Castellón de la Plana, Gandia, Paterna and Mislata.
Over 2.1 million third doses have been given in the region, he said.
The Valencia region is above the national average for vaccinations in all age groups, and by 8% for 5-11 year olds.
Sr Puig repeated the vaccine’s importance to ‘protect health, free up the hospital system and live normally’, assuring that – despite Omicron – hospitalisation levels for vaccinated people are 2.5 times lower than the worst of the pandemic, and intensive care occupancy is three times lower (more on p4).
Measures to restore primary attention included extending the contracts of all 2,580 active Covid reinforcement personnel, extending prescriptions for chronic conditions, registering work absences for quarantine in a single procedure, registering work absences for diagnoses in pharmacies online, collaborating with pharmacies to register home tests, text message notifications of test results, and vaccinating children in schools.
Also this week the national public health committee made a new recommendation that vaccinated adults who become infected should wait five
months after they recover before receiving the booster jab, while as yet unvaccinated infected children will be given a single dose after eight weeks rather than four.
The committee of the ministry for health and regions explained
this was in order to receive the maximum benefit of the antibodies developed from recovering but emphasised that the minimum wait between infection and booster is still four weeks.