People already lying to get third Covid shot, health service says

Health service GGD Zeeland has had multiple incidents of people trying to sneak in a third dose of Covid-19 vaccine by lying about how many shots they've already had. "Obviously that is an undesirable situation," the health service said to Omroep Zeeland.

An increasing number of countries are recommending these booster shots, in some cases only for vulnerable people with weakened immune systems, to better protect against the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus. This to the annoyance of the World Health Organization, which warned that this would result in too few vaccines being available to poor countries who couldn't afford to buy more than they needed, like the developed countries did.

The Netherlands has not yet made a decision on whether or not to give residents a booster shot. The Dutch Health Council is expected to present advice on that next month.

A survey by EenVandaag showed that a majority of Netherlands residents want a booster shot, but only after people in poorer countries have been vaccinated. Respondents called it unfair to make people in these countries wait longer, and raised concerns about new coronavirus variants developing when parts of the world are not protected.