The exclusive self-scheduling for vaccination against covid-19 for young people aged 16 and 17, for places available on the weekend of 14 and 15 of August started on Tuesday, a week after the vaccination for the age group was opened. Ages 18 and over was however, suspended. Self-scheduling for 16 and 17-year-olds ended on Friday, which allowed reactivating the schedule for those over 18 years old.

By 6pm on Thursday, 70 thousand young people aged 16 and 17 from "a pool of 200 thousand" had already self-scheduled their vaccination, said the 'task force' vaccination coordinator, Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo, on Friday.

The self-scheduling mode allows people to select the location and date they want to be vaccinated, then on receiving an SMS message confirming the day, time and vaccination centre. Additionally, the confirmation of the appointment is given by an SMS reply. To schedule your vaccination please go to https://covid19.min-saude.pt/pedido-de-agendamento/.

On Friday, Portugal reached the target of having 70 percent of the population vaccinated with at least one dose of vaccine against covid-19, according to the Ministry of Health in a statement. In mainland Portugal, around 12.1 million vaccines have already been administered, which has allowed to vaccinate with at least one dose more than 6.9 million people, of which around 6.2 million already have the complete vaccination. The vaccination campaign against covid-19 began on the 27 of December 2020 in Portugal, with Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca (double dose) and Janssen (single dose) vaccines being currently administered.