Gibraltar has vaccinated nearly all adults against the Coronavirus

Gibraltar, a small British territory on the southern coast of Spain, It is almost over To vaccinate its adult population against the Coronavirus, thanks to the vaccines that arrived from the United Kingdom, one of the countries in which the administration was located It is advancing the fastest in the worldFor comparison, more than 37 percent of the population in the United Kingdom received the first dose of the vaccine, while in Spain only 9 percent received it.

Gibraltar has a population of about 34,000, and since the start of the epidemic it has seen 4,263 infections and 94 deaths. The high population density (more than 4 thousand people per square kilometer) made the region particularly vulnerable to the spread of the virus, but at the same time facilitated logistical efforts to distribute vaccines. Moreover, not only have the citizens of Gibraltar been vaccinated, but more than a thousand Spanish citizens living in Spain and crossing the border daily have also been vaccinated to work in Gibraltar.

So it was easier to vaccinate the entire adult population than in other countries, but without UK support this would not have been possible. Gibraltar is in fact an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, recognized by the United Nations in the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, and like all British territories, it received doses of the vaccine directly from the motherland.

In total, 49,981 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been administered so far: of these 20147 doses are the second doses, that is, those needed to complete the vaccination. The vaccination program in Gibraltar, called Operation Freedom, allowed schools, bars and restaurants to reopen, with 50 percent of the maximum number of spectators entering football matches.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock, speaking in the House of Commons in London, said Thursday that Gibraltar is “the first country in the world to complete a vaccination program for its adult population”. However, Hancock’s statement is not entirely correct: Gibraltar is not an independent country, and vaccination is not yet complete, as not all of the adult population has already received the second dose of the vaccine.

Fabian Picardo, the prime minister of Gibraltar, explained to the local newspaper History of Gibraltar Hancock’s mistake may be due to a sentence Picardo himself said a few days ago in Parliament: “What I said is that we will be the first country to be fully vaccinated, and that is not what we did already. But I think it’s a matter of hours.”