Health service expanding vaccination capacity; 140 jab locations by May

The GGD municipal health services are significantly scaling up their vaccination capacity, in anticipation for the large amount of coronavirus vaccine deliveries expected in the second quarter, the Volkskrant reports.

The number of vaccination sites will double by May, from 70 to 140. The number of XL vaccination locations, each with nine vaccination lines, will increase from the current four to 42 by mid-May, umbrella organization GGD GHOR Nederland said to the newspaper.

"We are preparing for 1.5 million injections per week," Tiemen Bloemberg of the umbrella organization said. "As soon as more vaccines come in, we will be ready."

The Ministry of Public Health expects that vaccine deliveries will increase significantly from next month. In the first three months of this year, the Netherlands received about 4 million vaccine doses. In the second quarter, 16.5 million doses are expected.

Nearly half of the expected doses are from Pfizer/BioNTech - the most reliable supplier so far. And 3 million doses are from Janssen, the only vaccine that requires one dose instead of two.

If the deliveries come in as planned, about 10 million of the 14 million adult Netherlands residents eligible for vaccination, can be fully inoculated against the coronavirus by the end of the second quarter.