Spanish health minister targets end of coronavirus crisis by the summer next year

Spain says around 70% of the population will be immunised by next summer

The Spanish vaccination program began yesterday, with the rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Some 4.5 million doses will be delivered to Spain over the next 12 weeks, with the government having then said that they expect 15-20 million people to have been vaccinated in the first half of next year.

For some context, the Spanish population is roughly around 47 million people so the latest headline is more on the optimistic side.

Just be reminded that the Pfizer vaccine requires two doses so the initial 4.5 million doses will be roughly enough to cover around 2.25 million people.

As things stand, there is a lot of hope and optimism on the vaccine timeline and that is keeping markets cheerful going into next year.

However, if there is any setback or if there is a dawning reality that the timeline will be delayed, that could temper with the mood somewhat moving forward.