The first person to receive the vaccine in Spain today just after 9am was Araceli Rosario Hidalgo a 96-year-old resident in Los Olmos nursing home in Guadalajara. Araceli spoke to the press just after the jab “ this is something really important and let’s see if we can get rid of this virus and we can all return to a normal life, it has been bad without be able to go out or see family, really bad.”

Monica Tapias a 48-year-old health care worker was the next to receive the vaccine in the same nursing home and said it was an honour to receive the vaccine. Monica also pointed out she will never forget the people they lost to Covid without family members near and encouraged everyone to get vaccinated to put an end to this pandemic.

In Andalusia, Antonio & Pilar residents in Beato Fray Leopoldo Nursing home in Granada were the first to receive the vaccination. The vaccine is on route to Huelva and the first people to be vaccinated will be residents in Santa Teresa de Jornet Nursing Home in Huelva as well as health care workers in Juan Ramon Jimenez Hospital.

Andalusia has a provision of 868,725 doses of the vaccine in this first phase and expects to have the first phase complete within 12 weeks.

In Huelva the incident rate is 162 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last fortnight. There are however eight hotspots which exceed the extreme risk level of 250. These are Lucena del Puerto (653), La Palma del Condado (576), Jabugo (444), Cartaya (375), Bonares (363), Isla Cristina (348), Palos de la Frontera (319) and Escacena del Campo (263)

Ayamonte has had 20 confirmed cases in the last 14 days which equates to a rate of 96 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Andalusia declared 692 new cases today, with Malaga declaring the highest with 134 cases while Huelva was by far the lowest with only 18 new cases. Sadly, there were 17 more deaths to COVID-19 but none of those corresponded to Huelva. It is good to see Huelva return to zero deaths after seven declared Christmas eve and two on Boxing day.

Huelva has nine patients in intensive care and the number of people in hospital continues to drop and is now at 55. There are currently 1,003 patients in Andalusian hospitals with Covid-19 of which 233 are in intensive care.