Supermarkets, department stores and consumer-goods firms in Spain have offered to help overloaded health authorities with coronavirus vaccinations, while the government says that more than one million people have received two shots.
Five major retail associations said in a letter to health authorities that their members - many of which already carry out annual inoculations of staff - could administer COVID-19 jabs to their workers to ease the pressure on the health service.
Companies including El Corte Ingles, Carrefour and IKEA, said they could operate in strict compliance with the national vaccination strategy.
Although Spain initially said its primary-care network could handle the vaccination plan, an acceleration in vaccine deliveries expected in the second quarter after recent delays is prompting regional authorities to consider converting big venues into makeshift injection centres.
Madrid will use stadiums, while other regions such as Andalusia, Valencia and Catalonia are weighing their options, potentially even using cathedrals. The Andalusian city of Ronda has already opened drive-through vaccination stations.
To hit a national target of inoculating 70% of the 47 million strong population by the end of summer, some regions may hire retired physicians, students or pharmacists to help out.
In an initial phase aimed at protecting nursing home residents and workers and frontline medics, Spain has administered 2.4 million doses, with just over a million people each receiving their two shots.
Nearly all those vaccinations so far have been with the Pfizer/BioNTech shot, on a regime of two doses separated by about three weeks. Spain is also using the Moderna vaccine.
Authorities will soon deploy AstraZeneca's vaccine, which is approved for 18-55 year olds, to a broader section of society, including domestic workers and physiotherapists.
With Spain's 14-day infection rate down to 496 cases per 100,000 people from almost 900 in late January, several regions have begun to relax restrictions.
The death toll from the virus rose by 530 to 64,747 on Friday, while the tally of cases climbed by 14,581 to 3.06 million.
Bars in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha reopened on Friday but customers must download a QR code before entering to aid contact tracing. Meanwhile, Madrid will extend its 10 p.m. curfew by an hour to 11 p.m. from next Thursday.
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Re the comment by Roger - whilst I somewhat admire his willingness to contribute towards the cost of the Covid vaccine, if this was allowed, would those paying for it expect go to the front of the queue ?
Today UK vaccination has topped 15 million, Spain and other EU country have to blame Pointless and torturous EU regulations which basically impeded ordering and roll out of the vaccine. Better together has lost its shine
It is sad that the ideological mentality of our local/regional politicians is limiting roll-out of the vaccination rather than promoting it....it is not surprising that many, well-organised, and highly-successful, private enterprises are offering their help and they have both the commercial and social mentality to do so...I sincerely hope that their efforts will be taken onboard but I sadly suspect that those in power will regard it as being as insult to their own intellect and authority...I hope I am proven wrong....I would also be personally happy to make a financial contribution to getting a vaccine so that we can minimise the cost on the public purse (even though I pay social charges each month) and can see a restart to a better economy in the years ahead.