Booster shots available with no appointment in most provinces as NL climbs to 10th in EU

More and more vaccination locations offer booster shots without an appointment. The GGDs hope to lower the threshold for a booster shot against the coronavirus. The Netherlands has risen further in the ECDC ranking of booster campaigns in Europe. Nearly 47 percent of adults have received a booster shot to date, good for tenth place.

From Wednesday, people who want the additional shot can go to any vaccination location in Friesland. In the Gelderland cities of Apeldoorn, Doetinchem, and Zutphen, no appointment is needed anymore, said the GGD. Harderwijk will be added on Friday.

Since last week, people in Leeuwarden and Drachten have been able to walk in for a booster shot without an appointment. Heerenveen, Sneek, and Dokkum are added to that list.

GGD Limburg-Noord announced that people could also get the shot in Venlo and Weert from this week without an appointment. In Venlo, this will start from Wednesday and in Weert from Thursday. In Venray, people could already go for a booster shot without an appointment.

Locations in Zeeland, Groningen, Drenthe, Noord-Holland, Noord-Brabant, Zuid-Limburg, and Overijssel also already, or will soon, offer injections without an appointment.

The opening times for the injection locations in Friesland differ, according to the GGD. People can walk in for a shot up to an hour before a location's closing time. The health service warns people that they may face "some waiting time." GGD Noord- and Oost-Gelderland also said that it sometimes goes a bit faster for people with an appointment because they have already registered.

If you already had an appointment for the booster shot but want to get it earlier, you don't have to cancel the appointment in advance. That is done on the spot.

GGDs can offer booster shots without an appointment if they have the capacity to do so. As soon as they have more vaccine administers than appointments planned, they have room to offer free walk-ins. This is the case in more and more places in the country. At some GGDs, an appointment is still required for the time being.

Only adults who had their last coronavirus vaccination or had a coronavirus infection despite being vaccinated more than three months ago can get a booster jab.

The Netherlands has been steadily climbing in the ECDC's booster campaign ranking. At the end of last week, the country stood in 12th place and 17th place a week ago.

Iceland still tops the rankings. There, nearly 70 percent of adults have received a booster shot. This is followed by Malta (64.4 percent), Denmark (63.4 percent), Ireland (62.2), Belgium (57), Austria (55.9), France (54.3), Germany (51.5), and Luxembourg (47.1). The Netherlands surpassed Cyprus and Greece in recent days.

At the bottom are Romania (8 percent) and Bulgaria (7 percent). A few weeks ago, the Netherlands was also at that level.

In the Netherlands, 1.86 million people received a booster shot against the coronavirus last week. Never before have so many people been vaccinated in a week.