Health service plans to vaccinate 225,000 care personnel in January

Health service GGD plans to vaccinate 225 thousand care personnel of nursing homes and institutions against the coronavirus during the course of January. Their second shot will follow in February. All in all, the health service expects the vaccination of care personnel to take six weeks, Andre Rouvoet of GGD GHOR Nederland said on radio program 1 op 1 on NPO Radio 1.

Rouvoet did not want to say exactly when vaccination will start, because a lot depends on when the first vaccines become available. "I'm not going to put a date on it. You want to get going with vaccinations as soon as you carefully and safely can."

A source in the German government told Reuters that European medicines regulator EMA will approve the vaccine developed by Pfizer/Biontech on December 23. Earlier this month the EMA said it would issue its verdict on the Pfizer vaccine by December 29, and on the Moderna vaccine by January 12.

The GGD is in the process of setting up 25 locations throughout the country where healthcare personnel will be vaccinated. Each location will need 30 employees to give the injections. Rouvoet is confident that each location will soon be fully staffed.

The registration system that will keep track of who got what vaccine and when is also still in development. Here too Rouvoet is confident that it will soon be ready. Privacy is well guaranteed, he said.