Child Covid vaccinations slowing down; Just 210,000 jabs given in all NL last week

The number of children being vaccinated against Covid-19 is rapidly falling. Just over 94,000 minors between 12 and 17 received a vaccine shot last week, compared to nearly 132,000 each of the previous two weeks. Just one week earlier, in the second week of August, more than 142,000 injections were given to children born from 2004 to 2009.

The minors receive the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech, which has to be administered twice unless the GGD is notified of a confirmed prior coronavirus infection. Just over 605,000 children have had the first shot so far, according to the weekly figures from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). That is slightly more than half of the minors who qualify for a jab.

This figure went up by more than 18,500 during the last calendar week. One week earlier, more than 25,000 first vaccine shots were given, and more than 29,000 the week before.

Out of the 605,000 vaccinated children, more than 450,000 have also received a second shot. As a result, the vaccination rate rose from 32 to 39 percent. Health officials administered more than 75,000 booster shots last week, compared to more than 106,000 the week before.

Only a total of about 210,000 shots were given in all of last week. That was the lowest since the week ending March 21.

In adults, the number of vaccine injections has continued to slide for several months. Almost 116,000 shots were taken by people in aged 18 and up last week, compared to more than 135,000 a week earlier and more than 616,000 at the beginning of August. In every age group over 51 years, the vaccination rate is above 80 percent. In the seventies this is even more than 90 percent.

Roughly 11.3 million people are considered fully vaccinated in the Netherlands according to the RIVM, which still does not include people who were previously infected with the virus and only received one dose of a two-shot vaccine. The figure includes almost 792,000 people given the Janssen Vaccine, which currently requires only one dose to be considered fully vaccinated in the Netherlands. That went up by about 3,200 in the past week.

Another 11.8 million people have received one shot of either the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines.

Across the Netherlands, 83.1 percent of all people who are eligible for a Covid-19 vaccination have now received at least one dose. Almost three quarters are fully vaccinated. About 85.4 percent of all adults have been vaccinated, with 77.1 percent considered fully vaccinated. That puts the Netherlands in eighth place among the 30 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area.