More than 514,000 children in the age group of 5 to 11 years old have already been invited for vaccination in Flanders, which corresponds to 99.3% of all those eligible, announced the Agency for Care and Health.
The relatively small group of children who have not yet been able to make an appointment for basic vaccination will soon also be able to set a date. The first vaccine has already been administered to 87,117 children (17%), and the Agency has received refusals for just over 25,000 invited children (4.9%).
However, the number of no-shows - people who do not cancel their appointment but also do not turn up - is relatively high in this age group: about 32,000 no-shows, or 39%, according to spokesperson Joris Moonens.
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The high percentage mainly has to do with people who have to go into isolation or quarantine, he said. "But there are probably also a lot of parents who have not yet decided and therefore want to wait a bit longer."
"If they have not refused, they will receive a new invitation, but there will also be parents who do refuse, but have not explicitly indicated that," Moonens said. "In any case, we had already taken into account that the vaccination rate would be lower in this age group. We felt some more doubts."
