In total, there are about 102,000 young people scheduled to take the first dose of the vaccine against covid-19 and they will all do it between Saturday and Sunday. According to the 'task-force' responsible for the process, all vaccination centers will be at their maximum installed capacity during these two days, but the goal is to vaccinate even more people.

Therefore, in addition to the 102 thousand that carried out the self-scheduling at the beginning of the month, and which represent about half of the population in this age group, the “Open House” modality will also be available. This modality, which works during limited hours, does not require prior appointment, requiring only obtaining a digital password through the Ministry of Health portal (https://covid19.min-saude.pt/senha-digital-casa-aberta/ ), and is currently only available to people over 18 years of age.

However, the weekend will be dedicated to the age group from 16 to 17 years old and, therefore, ‘task-force’ wants even those without an appointment to get vaccinated. Like the younger ones, 16 and 17 year olds will be inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine, whose interval between doses, currently defined by the DGS standard, is 21 days. Thus, on the weekend of 5th and 6th September, they will return to receive the second dose, in order to have complete vaccination before the start of the school year, which starts between 14 and 17 September.

After this age group, the next two weekends will be dedicated to young people between 12 and 15 years olds, who should have both doses by the 19 September. On Wednesday, Vice Admiral Gouveia de Melo, who coordinates the 'task-force' responsible for the vaccination process, called for the youth to join on the scheduled dates, but did not rule out other strategies. “If we are not able to vaccinate young people on these weekends, we will certainly find other days to vaccinate these young people, but the organised and dedicated process is carried out on these two weekends. The other process, will naturally integrate because there will be opening for this because we only have one objective, which is to vaccinate," said the official.

Portugal already has 62 percent of the population with complete vaccination against covid-19 and 71 percent with at least one dose administered, with those over 65 years of age almost fully vaccinated. The most recent DGS vaccination report against Covid-19 counts 7,330,505 residents in Portugal (71 percent) with at least one dose of vaccine administered and 6,403,987 people (62 percent) with full vaccination.