Vaccination buses to help get Covid-19 vaccination rate to 85%

The Ministry of Public Health will soon hold a national day in which vaccination buses will go into the Netherlands' neighborhoods and vaccinate people against Covid-19. The goal is to get the vaccination rate up to 85 percent. This vaccination day will happen in a few weeks, a spokesperson for the Ministry said to NU.nl.

Currently 84 percent of Netherlands residents aged 16 and older have been vaccinated against Covid-19 or want to be, according to public health institute RIVM. But the spread of the injections is also important, the Ministry spokesperson said. The mobile vaccination clinics will therefore focus on places where willingness to get vaccinated is low, such as Christian municipalities and poorer neighborhoods.

The Ministry hopes that this will help prevent local outbreaks, which in the worst case scenario can lead to coronavirus mutations. Such mutations can potentially be dangerous for vaccinated people too, though the vaccines currently seem to work well against the known coronavirus variants.

Health service GGD will go into the neighborhoods by bus to provide local residents with information about the Covid-19 vaccines. People who want to get vaccinated, will be able to get a shot immediately without making an appointment.

Exactly what vaccine will be used on these buses is not yet clear. The Ministry is still consulting on this with the GGDs, safety regions, and municipalities. The Janssen vaccine seems the logical choice, because it only requires one shot, the Ministry spokesperson said to NU.nl.