Nora Kronig, the head of vaccinations at Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), told RTS that she expects all those who want to be vaccinated in Switzerland will be able to by the end of June 2021.
Kronig said that the pace of vaccination will rise rapidly and that she was satisfied with recent progress.
All of Switzerland’s cantons have started vaccinating and the numbers are rising day by day, she said.”We should be able to vaccinate everyone who wants it between now and the end of June”, said Kronig.
The current number of doses is enough to vaccinate 3% of the population, a figure expected to rise to 8% by the end of February 2021.
The vaccination programme is beyond what has ever been achieved in Switzerland, said the expert. “In Switzerland, over 6 months, we normally vaccinate around 1 million people. Now in the space of 6 months we should manage between 12 and 14 times more vaccinations based on the number of people who want to be vaccinated”, she said.
By 28 January 2021, an estimated 200,000 people had been vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, representing around 10% of the population at a high risk.
Recent delays in the delivery of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are slowing progress. Next week, the canton of Valais expects to receive only 900 doses of the vaccine instead of a planned delivery of 7,000 doses. The situation is similar elsewhere. Some are hoping deliveries of the Moderna vaccine might fill some of the gap.
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Lynx says
Really? They are still in the first group – the mega old – where I live. An estimate of when I’ll get my first jab at the current rate of vaccinations is at least 3 years. I know there is a supply issue, but something needs to change, and quickly.