This will determine which healthcare workers will get the vaccine first – VG

When the first priorities for vaccines arrived in Norway, health workers were not on the list. That changed at Christmas.

Now a limited number of doses will also be administered to healthcare professionals. But which health workers should be prioritized first?

FHI has not released a final list of roles and job code, and decided which healthcare workers will get the vaccine first.

But they have published two criteria that municipalities and health trusts should use when choosing:

1. Health professionals who work in essential services and who are critically difficult to replace. These are personnel of which there are few and who have specialized competence, and who are difficult to obtain or replace when relocating other personnel, and who perform important functions that cannot be reduced without clear consequences for life and life. Health.
2. Healthcare professionals who have direct contact with the patient when SARS-CoV-2 infection from a patient to an employee is a risk.

FHI notes that they do not yet know to what extent vaccines protect against further infection. And therefore, it is not a separate criterion if, for example, you work in a nursing home.

– At present, FHI does not propose indirect protection of patients as a criterion. This means that close contact with people who are at high risk for serious illness and death is not a sufficient criterion for early prioritization, writes FHI.

Suggest the use of a table

FHI has developed a table that health trusts and municipalities can use to choose from. Healthcare workers in various categories, such as emergency room personnel or home care personnel, receive a score of one (low) to five (high), in these categories:

• Personnel that are critically difficult to replace in isolation / quarantine
• Personnel in necessary services that are in greater demand due to the increase in covid-19 infection
• Increased risk of infection from infected patients not detected in the first line
• Increased risk of infection with known infected patients and risky procedures

The idea is that you then add up the points to see who gets the highest, and therefore you should get the vaccine first.

As many doses as possible

FHI notes that because the goal of vaccination is to protect against serious illness and death, the elderly and infirm should continue to be given high priority. However, a limited number of doses should still be administered to healthcare professionals:

• In the specialized health service, 30,000 doses are initially established, that is, enough to fully vaccinate 15,000 health personnel, writes FHI.
• In the primary health care service, municipalities have the opportunity to resign until 20 percent of the doses they receive in January, writes FHI.