When can I get the corona vaccine?

This year: 50 million vaccines. In 2021: 1.3 billion. Pharmaceutical Pfizer presses the turbo button to deliver as many vaccines as possible as quickly as possible. As soon as drug authorities give the green light, countries can start vaccinating people against the coronavirus.

Michiel van der Geest November 9, 2020, 18:13

Pfizer hopes that the first people in the United States will be able to receive the vaccine as early as this year. Europe is likely to follow soon after. The European Commission has a contract for 200 million doses, with an option for an additional 100 million. Since the Netherlands receives 3.89 percent of this, our country can expect about 11.7 million vaccines.

Of course not all of them arrive at the same time; the more production is up and running, the more vaccines will come to the Netherlands. How exactly these will be distributed and who can get vaccinated when, remains uncertain. The Health Council will issue an opinion on this at the request of the minister, probably next week.

It will describe how the use of vaccines can lead to the greatest possible health gain, which risks are associated with this, which organizational requirements must be resolved, and how – the holy grail – a vaccine makes group immunity feasible.

Who first?

First of all, people with fragile health, especially the elderly and people with underlying conditions, will be eligible for the vaccine, expects André Knottnerus , former chairman of the Health Council. ‘Then follow the care workers and people whose profession makes physical contact inevitable, for example the police.’ Next in the list: people with vital professions. ‘And if enough vaccines are available, feeling safe in business, culture and the hospitality industry is also important.’

Knottnerus insists that ‘we have to keep a cool head until we have all the scientific data in order and the scripts are ready’. The RIVM has already set up a program for this, the institute says. When all this is done, many Dutch people can collect a vaccination in a relatively short time, says Knottnerus . ‘If the vaccines become available at a predictable time, experience shows that a large-scale rollout is possible within two months.’ During the Mexican flu, millions of Dutch people received a vaccine within a few months.

‘Of course we have the infrastructure for that, that’s no question at all,’ says Roel Coutinho , former director director of the Center for Infectious Disease Control at RIVM. ‘If we vaccinate the most vulnerable first, we actually follow the line of the people who already get the flu shot.’ Six million people in the Netherlands qualify for this, ‘and that’s what GPs are already doing’.

Difficulty: keep cool

One difficulty with the Pfizer vaccine is that it must be stored at -80 degrees Celsius. Coutinho : ‘That creates additional complications, and it will undoubtedly be difficult, but that is just a matter of setting priorities in your organizational capacity. I have no doubts that the Netherlands can do this well. ‘

Once healthcare workers hand out the vaccine, it is important to keep an eye on any side effects and to investigate how long protection against the virus lasts. This is not yet clear due to the haste with which the vaccine was worked together. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Minister Hugo de Jonge recently informed the House of Representatives, will ‘actively take action against disinformation on social media’.