The "open house" modality is available, as of yesterday, for the vaccination of first doses of users who are not scheduled, aged 35 years or over and who have not been infected with Covid-19 in the last six months,” said the structure responsible for the vaccination process in a statement. According to the 'task force', whoever chooses to be vaccinated in this modality will receive the Janssen vaccine, in a single dose, "with users having to take into account what is stipulated" in the norm of the General Directorate of Health, which recommends the administration of this vaccine to men aged 18 and over and women aged 50 and over. “Since 19 July, the “open house” modality is subject to the use of Janssen's vaccine”, said the structure led by Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo.

The 'task force´ also recalled that people who have not received the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine do not need to make an appointment for the second dose, they just need to go to the respective center at the specific time for this type of vaccination. According to the 'task force', users in this situation, and who have not yet been contacted by the health services, can “proactively go to the same Covid-19 vaccination center (CVC) where they took the first dose” to receive the second dose. In June, the Directorate-General of Health (DGS) decided to reduce the interval for taking the second dose of Astrazeneca vaccine from 12 to eight weeks to ensure "faster protection" against the transmission of new "concern variants" of the virus SARS-CoV-2.

In Portugal, since the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, 17,219 people have died and 935,246 cases of infection have been registered, according to the Directorate-General for Health. The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in countries such as the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil and Peru.