Since the Balearic government announced its intention to bring in the Covid passport as a requirement for entering restaurants, 8,072 first doses of vaccine have been administered. The announcement was made on November 29.
The highest number in one day was 943 on Thursday (December 9), the passport having come into effect on Saturday (December 4). Since then, 4,514 first doses have been administered - an average of 645 per day. By way of comparison, for the same week in October, the average was 433.
While the current average is up notably, it is nothing like the daily rate was at its peak. The most first doses in one day were 11,127 on June 28. The rate began to level off at around 1,000 or so by September before falling further.
Specialist in public health and preventive medicine, Joan Carles March, believes that the Covid passport for restaurants (among other places) is "an important incentive to increase the number of people who are vaccinated".
In his view, "it is important to continue increasing the number of people vaccinated to achieve what we know so far: that the risk of death is nine times higher among the population that has not been vaccinated against Covid-19, while the risk of admission to ICU is multiplied by 16".
"Therefore, implementing measures such as the Covid passport help to minimise contacts between vaccinated and unvaccinated in an environment where being inoculated divides the chances of contagion by two."
* 886,129 people in the Balearics have had at least one dose of vaccine; 85.63% of the target population.