Rabat – Morocco’s national vaccination campaign reached another milestone this week as more than 1.5 million citizens have now received their “booster” vaccination. The country continues to be a continental leader when it comes to its domestic efforts to vaccinate vast swaths of its population.
Despite the controversial decision to make vaccination-passports mandatory, the move has boosted vaccination rates. 24.3 million Moroccans and residents have now received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 22.2 million being fully inoculated.
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While Morocco continues to push to vaccinate as many citizens as possible, daily case numbers have shown an encouraging decline in recent weeks, with only 182 new cases reported nationwide on Friday, November 6.
Over the past week, Morocco reported 1,262 new cases to the WHO. Morocco still recorded thousands of new cases every day in September, but that peak has gradually declined and has remained in the hundreds ever since.
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While Morocco’s epidemic appears to have waned, Europe is now considered to be the “epicenter” of the global outbreak, according to a November 5 statement by the WHO. Europe’s mix of different national approaches and measures has created “another critical point of pandemic resurgence,” according to WHO Europe chief Hans Kluge.
The WHO highlighted that Europe has experienced 1.8 million new infections and 24,000 COVID-related deaths over the last week, Kluge emphasized. “If we stay on this trajectory, we could see another half a million COVID-19 deaths in Europe and Central Asia by the first of February next year,” Kluge warned.
He emphasized the need for versatile tactics and a swift response to new surges, a strategy that Morocco has taken to heart with its recent border closures targeting several European countries.
