Belgium starts vaccination after Christmas, the Belgian Health minister Frank Vandenbroucke announced today. Biostatisticus Geert Molenberghs of the Catholic University of Leuven calls the Belgian vaccination mainly symbolic. ‘The cruising speed of our program does not start until the New Year.’
It’s 5,000 to 10,000 doses.
‘We’re all waiting for it, this is the first symbolic charge. We’re going to have to be patient for a few more months.’
‘In the medium term, it doesn’t matter, it’s about that cruising speed. The intention is to have vaccinated 4 out of 11.5 million people around the beginning of summer. We hope the programme will be completed by the end of 2021.’
The vaccination programme is carried out in Belgium through general practitioners and specific posts. There has already been practice in Brussels, the so-called ‘dry run’. Molenberghs believes that the program will proceed ‘in the spirit of the test streets’ and that vaccination streets will be used, as well as on – site vaccinations-in the residential care centres.
‘We have a whole pallet of possibilities to graze the different populations.’
