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For all Swedes to receive the covid injection in mid-summer, 5.6 million must be vaccinated in twelve weeks.
Sports stadiums, conference centers, and workplace vaccination teams are preparing to complete the task.
– But it is entirely based on the companies supplying the doses that have been said, there is a concern about that, says Emma Spak.
A few days after Christmas, the first doses of vaccine arrived in the country and since then there have been about 150,000 vaccinations, an average of 50,000 per week. But if all Swedes are to receive a vaccine in mid-summer, the vaccination rate must increase significantly in the coming months.
Over the next three weeks, Sweden will receive just over 83,000 doses per week on average, according to the Swedish Public Health Agency. At the end of January, the EU will be able to approve the Astra Zeneca vaccine and then the doses will increase significantly.
During March, Sweden will receive up to 500,000 doses per week, Richard Bergström tells SVT. This is the beginning of the mass vaccination phase, when the general public can be vaccinated. In April Two more vaccines are expected to be approved according to the vaccine coordinator.
Must have 935,000 doses per week
The municipalities and regions of Sweden aim for everyone to receive a vaccine by the end of June. This means that 5.6 million people must be vaccinated between April and June, according to Emma Spak, head of SKR’s health and medical care section.
– If we want to be successful, we must have 935,000 doses per week because each person needs several doses.
– Every year, the regions vaccinate two million people against seasonal flu in a few weeks, this is much bigger but the regions have experience, so I don’t think there will be any problem while we get vaccinated.
Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT / TT NEWS AGENCY
Aftonbladet has asked the vaccine coordinator how many doses Sweden is expected to receive between April and June, but has received no response. And the availability of vaccines is what runs the risk of becoming a brake pad.
When Pfizer announced last week that it would temporarily cut promised deliveries, a concern arose.
– The plan is based on the vaccine being approved and that we receive the doses that have been said. The Pfizer outage has created some concern in the regions that there may be continued delivery issues, says Emma Spak.
The hockey arena becomes a vaccination center
A logistical question is also how mass vaccinations should be carried out without the risk of becoming super-spread events. In various parts of the country, plans are underway to transform conference centers and sports stadiums into vaccination centers.
In Luleå, the hockey arena has already been put into use, reports SR, and in Gothenburg, Ullevi and Scandinavium have been mentioned as vaccination centers, according to GP. The military has also offered to help.
– Many regions purchase private vaccinators, for example occupational health care that can enter and vaccinate people at the workplace, says Emma Spak.
“May see effect in May”
And there is nothing wrong with the willingness to vaccinate: more and more people want to receive a covid injection according to Aftonbladet / Demoskop. The Swedish vaccination rate is currently 1.4 percent. To achieve herd immunity, experts believe that between 50 and 60 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated. Niklas Arnberg, a virologist at Umeå University, thinks Sweden can arrive before summer.
– Since the Astra Zeneca, Johnson and Johnson and Curevac vaccines are approved, I think we can see that the vaccines are starting to have an effect on the spread of infection in late April and early May. That’s my cautious assessment, says Niklas Arnberg.
Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT / TT NEWS AGENCY
Sweden’s Vaccine Coordinator Richard Bergström.
Sweden is currently ranked 23rd in the world with its vaccination rate. Israel tops the list with 34.4 percent and Great Britain finishes in fifth place with 7.6 percent of its population vaccinated.
The EU and Sweden have been criticized for falling behind with vaccines compared to countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, and therefore risk achieving herd immunity later on. On the one hand, it is believed that the EU took longer to approve the vaccines and bought fewer doses per capita.
– The EU has been more reluctant than others to report on the volumes we have and when they are delivered, while other countries have chosen to be optimistic, thus lacking information leading to the wrong conclusions, Richard Bergström told Aftonbladet previously .
Aftonbladet has searched for Sweden’s Vaccine Coordinator Richard Bergström to no avail.
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