As COVID cases rise, Spain approves booster shots for over 40s

Spain will administer a third dose of coronavirus vaccine to people aged 40 and over, the Health Ministry said on Thursday, expanding the booster programme a day after its child vaccination campaign kicked off amid a sharp rise in cases.

The ministry, which had already rolled out booster shots for the over 60s, health workers and clinically vulnerable, said the most elderly remained the priority, as well as those yet to receive any shot.

"Progressively, the booster dose may be administered to persons aged 49 to 40 years, starting with the oldest age cohorts," the ministry said in a statement.

Roughly 80 percent of Spain's population of 47 million has been fully vaccinated, and some 10 million have received a booster shot, according to official data released on Wednesday.

The 14-day nationwide infection rate has more than doubled to 442 cases per 100,000 people since the beginning of December, still remaining far lower than in countries such as Germany, France or Britain, while intensive-care ward occupancy has ticked up to 13.4 percent from 8.1 percent.

Spain has so far shied away from reimposing the tough restrictions on movement or socialising that weighed heavily on the tourism-dependent economy during earlier waves.

A handful of regions, including tourist magnets Catalonia, Valencia and Andalusia, introduced mandatory COVID passes for bars and restaurants in recent weeks, which, along with the emergence of the Omicron variant has led to a spike in travel cancellations, bookings data show.

Spain joined half a dozen other European countries in vaccinating five-to-11 year olds on Wednesday, hoping to stem the rising caseload in young children, as concerns rise over the spread of Omicron.

Health Minister Carolina Darias told parliament on Thursday that 40 confirmed cases of the variant had been sequenced in Spain, suggesting the prevalence could be around 1 percent of all infections.