Back to school: one in three children aged 5 to 11 has a vaccine dose

On Monday 10 January, most of the Spanish children and adolescents return to the classrooms after the Christmas holidays.

According to figures from the Ministry of Health, 32% of children between 5 and 11 years old have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The return to school is done this time in person, after it was agreed a week ago by the Ministry of Health and the health authorities of the autonomous regions, which have powers in education.

According to official figures, there are 3,349,276 minors between the ages of 5 and 11 in Spain who have to be vaccinated. The administration of the jabs began on 15 December and 1,076,522 have already received the first dose of the vaccine.

This age group between 5 and 11 years, the last for which the government authorized the vaccine, has the lowest percentage of immunized in the whole of the Spanish population. For the rest of Spaniards, from 12 years of age, the percentage of vaccination is 90%.

School quarantines

Regarding the isolation measures for the youngest school-age children, from 5 to 11 years old, the Ministry of Health recommended last week to the governments of the autonomous regions that they only apply the quarantine of the whole class if there are five or more infected or 20% of the students.

Four or fewer infections will be considered sporadic cases and isolation is not considered.

In Madrid, to facilitate the return to school, the City Council has decided that the buses of the municipal company EMT can be used free of charge on Monday and Tuesday.