The Latest: Spain nearing 5 million fully vaccinated people

The Latest: Spain nearing 5 million fully vaccinated people

Spain’s health minister says that authorities expect to reach within 24 hours the milestone of 5 million people fully inoculated against COVID-19

By The Associated Press

May 3, 2021, 11:12 AM

• 9 min read

Students arrive at school in Versailles, west of Paris, Modnay, May 3, 2021. Students go back to secondary and high schools and a domestic travel ban will end. The French government is slowly starting to lift partial lockdowns, despite still high numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalized COVID-19 patients. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

MADRID — Spain’s health minister said Monday that authorities expect to reach within 24 hours the milestone of 5 million people fully inoculated against COVID-19.

Health Minister Carolina Darias told reporters that Spain is on track for its goal of vaccinating before the summer 70% of the adult population, or around 33 million people.

Vaccination centers are working seven days a week, Darias, said, and by the first week of June some 10 million people will be fully inoculated.

Darias urged continuing caution. She said Spain’s COVID-19 incidence rate per 100,000 people over 14 days — an important measure of the pandemic’s spread — is 229 but varies widely between regions, with some lower than 70 and others in the range of 400-500.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Russia lags behind others in its COVID-19 vaccination drive

— Russia is turning to multiple Chinese firms to manufacture Sputnik vaccine as demand soars

— Residents in Madrid vote Tuesday for a new regional assembly in an election that tests people’s resistance to lockdown measures

— Nurses wearied by pandemic duty incensed by request to help at Tokyo Olympics

— Follow more of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal is halting all domestic and international flights because of spiking cases of COVID-19 in the Himalayan nation.

Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli said domestic flights would be stopped from Monday while all international flights would cease to fly in and out of Nepal from Thursday.

He appealed to other countries for vaccines, diagnostic equipment, oxygen and other supplies to help combat the pandemic.

India donated 1 million doses of vaccine followed by China providing another 800,000. However, India’s ban on exporting vaccines has hindered Nepal’s vaccine campaign, which began in January.

Nepal is still waiting for the 1 million doses from an Indian company which it already paid for in March.

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STOCKHOLM — Sweden plans to donate 1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to India via the U.N.-backed COVAX, an initiative devised to give countries access to coronavirus vaccines regardless of their wealth.

The Scandinavian country’s International Development Cooperation Minister Per Olsson Fridh announced it Monday on Swedish broadcaster SVT, adding “we see how the pandemic is raging around the world. People are dying, poverty is spreading, and children are still not back at school.”

“We need to do everything we can to face this pandemic and fight it across the world.”

The donation will have no impact on the rollout in Sweden which has decided to only administer the AstraZeneca shots to people 65 and over.

The country’s vaccine coordinator Richard Bergstrom said there are enough spare vaccines that Swedes can give away, adding “This is just a million ... we actually have another 4 or 5 million more of Astra Zeneca’s vaccine that we can share later.”

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PARIS — France’s secondary and high schools have reopened and a ban on domestic travel has been lifted as part of the government’s plan to gradually reopen the country.

The French are now allowed to go further than the 10-kilometer (six-mile) from home limit that has been applied for four weeks in efforts to slow down the spreading of the virus. A curfew from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m. is still in place.

Last week, President Emmanuel Macron has presented the key dates of the plan to move out of the country’s partial lockdown, as numbers of infections and hospitalizations have started decreasing.

Restaurants and cafes will be able to serve customers outdoors at tables seating a maximum of six people starting May 19, when the nightly curfew will be pushed back to 9 p.m.

Nonessential shops also reopen, as well as cultural sites and sport facilities, which will have occupancy limits of 800 people indoors and 1,000 outdoors.