Portugal ‘runs out of people’ to vaccinate, declares victory over COVID-19

With the world's highest vaccination rate, Portugal has run out of people to inoculate after more than 84% of the country's 10.3 million population was administered with the 2-dose COVID-19 vaccine. Head of the Southern European country’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign declared “a victory” over the novel coronavirus pandemic last month, nearly two years into the global health emergency. 

Portugal's COVID-19 taskforce leader Vice-Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo told a presser that every four in five people in Portugal were now “fully vaccinated”. The country’s health officials have made statements saying that overall, almost the entire population was protected against the COVID, putting the brakes on the spread and outbreaks and that the European nation has finally achieved a milestone at the end of the month of September, allowing the government to now lift most of the COVID-19 restrictions. 

"We have beaten this virus," COVID-19 taskforce leader Vice-Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo said at a press briefing. 

“We have actually run out of adults to give shots to,” Lurdes Costa e Silva, the chief nurse at almost closed Lisbon vaccine center told the Washington Post newspaper as the press took stock on the ground witnessing that several of the vaccination centers might now be shutting down.

Apart from the tiny Gibraltar, entire Portugal in the last few months had trusted science and queued outside the vaccination centres to get the jab, making Portugal Europe’s vaccination frontrunner. Portugal’s “hero” of the fight against COVID-19 is a former submarine commander Henrique Gouveia e Melo who had rallied to instil pro-vaccine confidence among the Portuguese. FT reported that the latter was greeted with applauds, cheers, and ovations at one of the crowded vaccination centres as people commended his efforts as the vaccination task force head who made the country the globe’s frontrunner.

'No adults' to get COVID-19 shot

Portugal has an estimated 86% population that received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and while nearly the entire nation is vaccinated, the country has no adults to give the shots to. Reports suggest that the pandemic severity, including indicators such as death toll and the trajectory of infection, has been tremendously dipping. COVID-19 linked fatalities registered by the now majorly vaccinated country is about nine times lesser than the United States where the pandemic is being driven by the vaccine-hesitant population. In a milestone achievement, the country jabbed 86% of Portugal’s 10.3 million residents as of September 30. 

“What matters is vaccinating enough people to protect the whole group,” Gouveia e Melo told a media briefing last month, adding that throughout the public vaccination campaign Portugal believed that being first, second or third in the world “is not important.” 

As Portugal’s vaccination campaign has neared the conclusive point during the pandemic, the Portuguese government announced that it would lift COVID-19 restrictions on October 1. Effective today, the officials will end the state of emergency instated on 1 August 2021.

The country announced that it will now enact the final phases of lifting restrictions, allowing full occupancy in restaurants, cultural venues to run on pre-pandemic capacity and less stringent rules in the requirements for in-country travel. The government has also suspended advice on maintaining a partially remote workforce.