Wallonia should have the capacity to vaccinate some 24,000 people a day by the end of March, providing it has the necessary vaccines.
This statement was made by Yvon Englert, the general delegate of the Walloon cell devoted to Covid-19, during a debate on vaccination organized in a committee of the regional parliament on Tuesday.
Since January 5, around 62,400 people in Wallonia have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine. This first phase concerns staff and residents of nursing homes - and since 18 January - hospital staff.
The next phase, which will begin in the next few days, will open vaccination to residents and staff of institutions for people with disabilities, and then, in February, to front-line care and support staff.
Only then will the vaccination campaign for the general public begin, with priority given to people aged 65 and over, those aged 45-65 with medical conditions and those performing essential functions, which have yet to be defined.
"With our 150 vaccination sites, we will have the capacity to vaccinate some 3 million people, while our target audience is 2.8 million," said Englert. These vaccinations will take place 6 days out of 7, throughout the 22 weeks planned for the campaign, until the end of August, "as long as we are not limited by the distribution of vaccines," he added.
Provided also that the population adheres to the vaccination, which seems to be on the right track, while the communication campaign will only be launched in mid-February.
"In the retirement homes, we now have a demand for vaccination of 60% of the staff, a percentage that has doubled compared to the first week of January," Englert added.
9 Major Centres
Wallonia will have 9 "major" centres, 30 smaller "proximity" centres, as well as a series of itinerant centres whose zones have been defined but not yet precise stops.
The locations of the "fixed" centres are already defined:
- There will be at least one major centre in each province (2 in the province of Liège and 4 in Hainaut),
- These will be supplemented by an addition pf at least four smaller centres (12 in the province of Liège and 6 in Hainaut).
Two major centres, those in Ronquières (Hainaut) and Bierset (Liège), will open earlier than the others to be used for the vaccination of primary care personnel.
The others will start their vaccination activities "at the end of March, subject to vaccine deliveries by pharmaceutical companies".
The Brussels Times
