The government’s goal is to make vaccination as easy as possible. Mobile vaccination stations (‘Impfbus’) are one of the ways authorities are trying to achieve that, with one of them making a stop in the municipality of Sanem on Thursday.
According to virologist Claude Muller, only a very small percentage of the population are staunchly opposed to vaccination. Instead, Muller thinks that a misguided communication strategy is the reason why one quarter of Luxembourg’s adult population is still not vaccinated. As an example, the virologist points to the National Health Directorate’s decision to publish the figures of vaccinated and non-vaccinated people who are hospitalised each week, criticising that they lead people to draw false conclusions regarding the effectiveness of vaccines.
In Sanem, people gave different explanations as to why they waited longer to get vaccinated. One woman explained that she was pregnant during the first major vaccine roll-out and was mainly worried for the safety of her baby. Another stated that the news coverage made her skeptical about the safety of the vaccines at first, but that the increase of unvaccinated people in intensive care over the past weeks finally convinced her to follow her daughter’s advice and get vaccinated after all.
Muller mentions that 97% of deaths linked to Covid-19 occur among people over the age of 55. 80% of people in this age bracket are vaccinated, with Muller explaining that the ideal vaccination rate for this age group would be between 90 and 95%. The vaccination campaign should thus focus on this age group, according to the virologist, since people under 55 generally have the choice of getting vaccinated or going through a Covid-19 infection.
Muller thinks that the number of infections will rise over the coming weeks, but also stresses that the number of hospitalisations is the most relevant figure at the moment.
As for the mobile vaccination stations, they offer jabs without the need to schedule an appointment first. In Sanem, 33 people were vaccinated on Thursday.
