Booster shot for everyone who wants one by mid-March, health service promises

Every Netherlands resident who wants a booster shot against the coronavirus will be able to get one by mid-March at the latest, Jaap Eikelboom of health service umbrella organization GGD GHOR Nederland said in an interview with the Telegraaf. The GGDs are significantly scaling up the number of daily shots, thanks to help from Defense and the Red Cross.

"Within two weeks, we will go from 150,000 to 700,000" booster shots administered per week, Eikelboom said to the newspaper. "We never had such a rapid upscaling, even during the massive [first Covid-19 vaccination] campaign."

The Netherlands is lagging behind many other European countries regarding the booster campaign. So far, some 850,000 people in the Netherlands have had a third shot of the Covid-19 vaccine. 

There are many reasons behind the slow start to the booster campaign, according to Eikelboom. One of the main problems was timing. The booster campaign started when the current wave of Covid-19 infections was already going strong.

"It would be wise not to plan future follow-up campaigns in a period when you know the number of test appointments will shoot up, such as in the fall or the winter. If you plan to start just before that, everything can be done a lot faster," he said to the newspaper.