The Ministry of Health believes it can fully vaccinate some 10,000 people per week in April, RÚV reports. This would be equal to the amount of people who have received at least one shot of the two required for vaccination since vaccination efforts began in Iceland.
On February 15th, Minister of Health Svandís Svavarsdóttir told reporters that the government planned to vaccinate some 190,000 people by the end of June, saying “these are numbers we can stand by”.
However, at the time of this writing, only just over 20,000 people are now fully vaccinated in Iceland. At this rate, the government will have only vaccinated some 80,000 people by the end of June.
The Jansen vaccine, which is due to arrive in Iceland on April 16th, will be a shipment of 3,500 doses. This vaccine requires only one shot. It will be a part of the various vaccines Iceland is currently using, which are those from Pfizer, Moderna, and Astra Zeneca, which the government decided to resume using earlier this week. While there has been talk of including the Sputnik V vaccine, the Icelandic government will not buy it unless European authorities approve, Fréttablaðið reports.
The government is expecting some 30,000 Moderna vaccines in the second quarter of this year, which begins in April, at some 10,000 doses per month. 37,000 vaccines from Pfizer are also expected in April, in addition to 25,600 doses from Astra Zeneca. There are, however, not yet any time schedules for the Moderna nor the Astra Zeneca vaccines.
If all this goes according to plan, the government believes they will be able to vaccinate some 10,000 people each week through April. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir told reporters yesterday that despite the slow start, “That plan is still valid. Nothing in itself has changed regarding what we’ve said, but regardless I feel that [the vaccinations] might go faster.”
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