Netherlands falls to 11th in EU Covid vaccinations; Pfizer to increase deliveries

Through Monday, the Netherlands at least partially vaccinated about 1,238,000 adults, or 8.6 percent of the adult population, according to the latest update from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). That dropped the Netherlands from 8th to a shared 11th place among European Union nations, which were asked to update the ECDC on Tuesdays and Fridays.

About 418 thousand of the 1.24 million have been fully vaccinated, or roughly 2.9 percent of the adult population. Including people under the age of 18, which are not allowed to receive any of the Covid-19 vaccines used in the Netherlands, the country has partially vaccinated about 7.1 percent of residents.

On Tuesday, healthcare workers administered 40,253 doses of Covid-19 vaccines, the RIVM said. Although that was the highest in four days, it was about 12 percent lower than last week. That dragged the moving daily average to 38,740, down 13 percent from a week ago.

Since January 6, the country has administered 1,696,498 vaccine doses in total, with over a half-million more not yet used. A revised estimate of vaccine data submitted to Parliament on Tuesday suggested another two million vaccine doses will be delivered this month.

One bright spot on the vaccine front was the announcement from the European Commission that it secured four million more Covid-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer/BioNTech for this month. That means the Netherlands will receive about 169,000 extra doses from Pfizer over the next two weeks, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said.

That is in addition to the 2.4 million which have either been delivered since January or were expected through March 31. Planned deliveries of AstraZeneca's vaccine through the end of the quarter total 1.5 million, and about 400 thousand Moderna doses were anticipated.

Combined, the deliveries are enough to fully vaccinate over 2.2 million people in the country, or 15 percent of the adult population. All three vaccines require two doses for maximum efficacy.