Covid-19 vaccine jabs to nearly double in NL this week

The Dutch government said on Tuesday that an estimated 416 thousand people would get a vaccine shot against Covid-19 this week, an increase of about 98 percent. Last week, healthcare workers in the Netherlands were able to give the injections to 210,254, according to the RIVM.

One reason cited for the low vaccination figures last week was the brief refusal to use the AstraZeneca vaccine while a European Medicines Agency committee investigated two dozen cases of blood clotting which took place shortly after injection. That meant that many healthcare workers and people aged 60 to 64 who are at risk of serious difficulty due to Covid-19 could not get inoculated against the disease during the one-week suspension.

With use of the vaccine underway again, the Dutch government predicted that over 59 thousand would get vaccinated per day on average this week, as opposed to 30 thousand last week. That situation did not yet materialize on Monday, when just over 24 thousand were vaccinated against the disease, according to RIVM estimates.

At least one dose of the two-dose vaccines currently used in the Netherlands has been administered to a growing number of elderly people living at home, including 80 percent of those aged 80 to 84, 78 percent of those from 85 to 89 and 67 percent of those 90 and up. After two weeks of vaccinating the population of at-home 75 to 79 year olds, some 15 percent have received their first injections.

Through Sunday, about 605,491 of the 2.1 million vaccines given out were a recipient's second dose. A day later, the number of vaccines used rose to 2,122,429.