The Ministry of Health has divided the population into 15 groups to receive the covid vaccine, as its head, Salvador Illa, announced this Friday.

Immunization will be carried out in three phases, which correspond to the first three quarters of the year, and will be gradually extended depending on the availability of doses.

In the first phase, there will be those admitted to residences, the personnel who attend to them, the rest of the toilets and people with severe disabilities, who add up to about 2.5 million people. The ministry intends for them to be immunized between January and March.

Spain’s coronavirus vaccination drive: these are the 15 priority groups

In the second and third phases, which would begin next and each would last a quarter, the rest would go, some of which can be divided into subgroups:

Older than 64 years (about nine million)
People with risk conditions (obesity, diabetes)
Those who live or work in closed communities or environments
Vulnerable population due to their socioeconomic situation
Essential workers
Staff
Children population
Population in areas with high incidence or in outbreak situations
Pregnant women and mothers with nursing babies
Already immunized people who have passed the covid
Adolescent and young population and the rest of the adult population

The order of vaccination of each group in these phases is not yet decided. “The groups cover the entire Spanish population. On this basis, it will be decided who will have priority in stage two and three. It will be a flexible decision, which will be made by the technicians when we have more data on the vaccines and their availability.

The strategy is going to be updated ”, Illa explained. “The rest of the groups that will be incorporated in stages two and three will be progressively agreed as the doses arrive, their availability increases, the information on the final characteristics of the vaccines and immunity increases”, he has added later the ministry.

Logically, the deadlines will depend on a factor that Health does not control: which vaccines will arrive, when they will arrive and in what quantity. Health, through the European Union, has signed or finalized contracts with six pharmaceutical companies (AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen, BioNTech-Pfizer, CureVac and Moderna) .

Spain has 140 million doses, which are equivalent to 80 million immunizations (most require double doses), almost double that of citizens, a margin thought to have enough doses in case the experiments fail or are delayed and to boost production so that developing countries can benefit.

What the minister has insisted on is the guarantees of the drugs used, and that their distribution between the groups and their prioritization will be based on aspects such as the risk of serious morbidity or mortality of people, risk of spreading the virus , the socioeconomic impact of being infected and the risk of exposure to the pathogen.

This may cause some of the established categories to unfold (for example, among young people and adolescents, among those who live or work in closed environments, or between pregnant and lactating mothers), which could raise the number of groups to 18, according to the report. Illa said.

He has also repeated that vaccination will be voluntary and, for the moment, it has not been considered to establish the requirement of vaccination to carry out certain activities.

Doubts about the implementation of fiscal stimuli hinders the work of central banks and jeopardizes the recovery

Despite the hopeful news about vaccines, the lockdowns and restrictions applied in the West and the United States are fueling fears of a new recession in the world economy.

This could increase pressure on central banks and governments to put aside other concerns and do more to stimulate demand.

Vaccines will not arrive, at the earliest, at the end of the year or the beginning of the next, meanwhile the economic situation continues to deteriorate.

Thus, the latest macro data does not accompany and show a weaker activity .

Thus, the indicators point to a double decline in the economy. This is demonstrated by the European PMIs, falling to 45 points, the exact level that separates growth and contraction, compared to the 50 points of the previous data.

These indicators generate a demand effect for more economic stimuli by politicians despite the fact that the European central banks have taken out the heavy artillery.

And in the case of the European Central Bank (ECB) it is preparing the reload of its pandemic purchasing program for December.

And it is that “while there is a lot of enthusiasm for the progress of vaccine development, it will not be the quick fix that many hope it will be,” said Singapore’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Chan Chun Sing.

“Making enough doses, then distributing and vaccinating a significant population of the world, will take years.”

For its part, the Federal Reserve could focus more of its bond purchases on term securities to lower interest rates.

Doubts about whether it will be enough.But there are concerns that central banks have run out of room to act decisively and that even easier financial conditions will not translate into an economic boost.

The International Monetary Fund warns of high asset prices and this points to a disconnect from the real economy and therefore may pose a threat to financial stability.

“There is an excess of savings and a shortage of investment”, which is the central problem facing developed economies, says Janet Yellen, who will be nominated for Treasury by Joe Biden.

Governments block fiscal policies “Our base scenario is a contraction of 4.1% for the world economy in 2020, followed by a rebound to 4.9% growth in 2021,” they point out from Bloomberg.

The problem is fiscal policy in both the United States and Europe.

A clear example is the disagreement between US lawmakers over how much more to spend as Biden prepares to take office.

President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department cut the Fed’s ability to help some credit markets last week.

In Europe, $ 2 trillion from the European Reconstruction Fund in aid is being held back by a fight over political control , sponsored by Poland and Hungary.

“Exactly at the moment when central banks around the world recognize the centrality of fiscal policy in dealing with the economic consequences of the pandemic, governments are creating difficulties to implement the next stage of their stimulus,” said Gilles Moec , chief economist at AXA.

For the United States, the pace of infections prompted JPMorgan to forecast an economic contraction.

The shares of Banco Sabadell, which celebrated the merger with BBVA before being announced, correct today on the stock market when the breakdown took place.

Sabadell has set a first price at 0.33 euros, which represented a fall of 18%. However, as the session progresses, these falls have moderated to around 10%, to 0.35 euros.

For its part, BBVA shares that started the day down, rose 2.6% to 3.86 euros and are the most bullish of the Spanish selective.

Opposite trend in the Stock Market: Sabadell plummets 10% and BBVA rises 2.5%.The banks have not reached any agreement for their merger

The rest of the sector shows a mixed trend. On the one hand, Bankinter and Bankia accompany Sabadell on the side of the falls – although in no case do they reach 1% – while Santander and CaixaBank advance positions.

The Sabadell share had already corrected since it touched 0.45 euros last week. Onur Genç’s statements indicating that they would not buy the Catalan entity at any price punished the price, which yesterday deepened the correction with a decrease of 5%.

Nothing to do with the meteoric rise on Monday 16. Although the negotiations were announced at the close of the market, the entity advanced 24.6%, followed by 6.75% the following day.

In the case of BBVA, the reaction was twofold, to the extent that on Monday the 16th the entity announced the sale of the subsidiary in the US for 9,700 million.

It rose 15.25% that day, but on the following day it corrected 4.4%. However, it has regained ground and closed on Wednesday at levels not recorded since February, when the pandemic began to sink the world stock markets.