Portugal has inoculated 98% of all its eligible residents, reaching one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and dropping nearly all COVID-19 restrictions Friday.
Eighty-six percent of Portugal’s 10.3 million population have been fully vaccinated, according to The New York Times (NYT).
As of Saturday, the European country was ranked second on the list of the most vaccinated nations in the world, behind the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (93%), according to Our World in Data.
Portugal is among the world’s leaders in vaccinations, with roughly 86% of its population fully inoculated.
Vice Adm. Henrique Gouveia e Melo, who turned the country’s vaccine campaign around, said there was a key to his success: Keep politics out of it.https://t.co/ZGFNBv7SRX
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 1, 2021
“We believe we have reached the point of group protection and nearly herd immunity. Things look very good,” Vice Adm. Henrique Gouveia e Melo, a former submarine squadron commander who has led the government’s vaccination program, said, according to the NYT.
Gouveia e Melo touted his accomplishments in promoting vaccination, saying that only 2.2% of the population are now against the vaccine, as opposed to “some 40% who were unsure” in the beginning, according to the NYT. (RELATED: Vaccine Hesitancy Among Fox News Viewers Hits All-Time Low After Network Promotes The Jab, Poll Finds)
“The first thing is to make this thing a war,” he explained his success in an interview, the NYT reported. “I use not only the language of war, but military language.”