Spain is to set up a registry of people who refuse to be vaccinated against coronavirus and share it with other European Union nations, the health minister said.
Salvador Illa said the list would not be made accessible to the public or to employers.
During an interview with La Sexta television, Illa reiterated that vaccination against the virus — which as in most EU nations began in Spain over the weekend — would not be mandatory.
“What will be done is a registry, which will be shared with our European partners… of those people who have been offered it and have simply rejected it,” he said.
“It is not a document which will be made public and it will be done with the utmost respect for data protection,” he added.
According to a recent poll, the number of Spanish citizens who have said they will not take the vaccine has fallen to 28 percent from 47 percent in November.
In other comments on Monday, Illa said people would be contacted by regional authorities when it was their turn to be inoculated.
“People who decide not to get vaccinated, which we think is a mistake, are within their rights,” he told reporters. “We are going to try to solve doubts. Getting vaccinated saves lives, it is the way out of this pandemic.”
Spain become on Monday the fourth European nation to surpass 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus, after the United Kingdom, Italy and France, per Johns Hopkins. It’s confirmed nearly 1.9 million cases.
