Record number of Covid vaccine shots after press conference

A record number of people received a Covid-19 vaccine shot on Wednesday at locations in the Netherlands which do not require an appointment, said GGD GHOR, which represents the municipal health service branches in the Netherlands. In total, about 13,000 people were vaccinated in a single day at a walk-in location.

The previous highest recorded peak in jabs given without an appointment on a single day was 8,000, a spokesperson for the organization said. Getting an injection without an appointment is only possible for the first shot of any vaccine, with some requiring two doses.

On Wednesday, the number of people who made vaccination appointments either online or via the national call center was well above average. A total of 18,039 scheduled their vaccine that day, with the average being about 10,000 per day in recent weeks. The appointments were mostly made either for a single dose of the one-shot Janssen Vaccine, or for two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Tuesday was also busier than usual online and at the call center. In one day, more than 17,000 people made an appointment for one or two Covid-19 jabs. On Tuesday evening, caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Health Minister Hugo de Jonge announced that the coronavirus access pass system will be mandatory in many more places.

People who have neither been vaccinated nor recently recovered from a coronavirus infection must therefore get tested within 24 hours of entering many more locations. GGD GHOR said that there are "occasionally" people at vaccination sites who say they are acquiescing because of the tightened measures.