On Friday, Prime Minister Sánchez announced that the cabinet will approve the vaccination strategy at this coming Tuesday's meeting.
Speaking in La Rioja for a presentation of the plan for economic recovery, transformation and resilience, Sánchez said that Spain, along with Germany, will be the first country in the EU to have a complete vaccination plan for Covid-19. "We have been working on this plan since September. We are prepared. Our forecasts are that, under almost any scenario, a very substantial part of the population will be vaccinated with all guarantees during the first half of 2021."
The prime minister added that the latest results of vaccine trials point to a "hopeful outlook", but he advised caution rather than "euphoria".
He referred to contracts that the EU has entered into with AstraZeneca and Pfizer and to the "very advanced" negotiations with Moderna. "We are working at full capacity so that vaccines will be available as soon as possible."
Turning to the current situation in Spain, Pedro Sánchez stated that the country is "on the right path" in bending the curve. There have been "two consecutive weeks of decline in incidence", he noted, with 436 cases per 100,000 over the past fourteen days. He acknowledged, however, that there is still "a very high incidence".
The ambitious goal, as recommended by the World Health Organization, is to bring the incidence down to 25. While infections are coming down, the prime minister stressed that "we cannot relax at critical times like Christmas, when we are going to enjoy ourselves with our loved ones and when mobility will increase". He warned that "we are going to have to have a specific response for these critical times".