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Photo: JOHN MANIACI / X80001
If the Pfizer vaccine is approved at the EU meeting on December 23, Norway will receive 9,750 doses over Christmas. Then the doses will be shipped on Christmas Eve.
This is confirmed by the Swedish vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström to VG.
All countries in Europe get the same number. This means that both Norway and a country like Germany, with its 83 million inhabitants, receive 9,750 doses.
That’s enough to vaccinate just under 5,000 people.
– In the first delivery, everyone receives the same amount. Everyone receives two large boxes, each with five boxes. So there will be a total of ten boxes with 975 doses, he says.
Delivery will be shipped to all countries on December 24, if the Pfizer vaccine is approved by the European Commission on December 23.
The first shipment must be symbolic and therefore an equal number. The next broadcasts will be carried out according to population. The agreement that Norway has with the EU countries, through Sweden, is that we will receive one percent of each vaccine.
EU objective to start at the same time
In the EU, there is a goal for all countries to start vaccination at the same time on December 27, the German health minister told Reuters. But even if the vaccine doses are shipped the same day, it is not entirely certain that everyone will have to inject at the same time.
– It depends on how you organize it. They can come this weekend, so it’s up to each country if you want to call the staff, says Bergström.
The first doses can go to nursing homes in Oslo and the surrounding areas, also in Østfold, Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H) said on Wednesday. NIPH is working to evaluate the principles on which these first doses should be administered. Read more about it here.
Around 30,000 – 40,000 doses a week starting in January
Starting in January, more ordinary deliveries can begin if approval has been approved in the EU.
– Then there will be a series of deliveries. Over the course of a week, Norway receives one percent of what is produced, says Bergström.
So it is also not the case that deliveries are sent to all countries at the same time. It could be that you send to a country on Monday, to a country on Tuesday and then to the Nordic countries on Wednesday, for example, he explains.
He cannot say exactly how many doses of the vaccine Pfizer will be able to receive in January, but estimates between 30,000 and 40,000 per week.
– Then it will intensify later when we have more capacity and more vaccines.
In the end, we will likely have multiple vaccines in Norway at the same time, not just the Pfizer vaccine, which will be approved first. But Bergström had already told VG that in the first few weeks we will probably only have one vaccine.
So far, Norway has finalized two agreements for the purchase of vaccines through Sweden and four more are in the works. The deal is complete for the Pfizer vaccine candidate and the Oxford vaccine candidate.
Read more about vaccine candidates that are relevant to Norway by clicking on them in the graphic below:
