Cyprus Mail 19 January 2021 - by Nick Theodoulou
The health ministry announced a revised vaccination rollout, due to the shortage of vaccines, which will further subcategorise those over the age of 80.
Essentially, the ministry will no longer accept all applications from those aged 80 and above but will instead restrict applications to the 90 and above group, the in two-year groups, eg 88-89, 86-87 and so on.
In an announcement on Tuesday morning, the ministry said: “Specifically, in the first stage, the vaccination portal will be available for an appointment for those aged 90 and above… until those within the age groups 80 and above have been covered.”
It was also noted however that when each age bracket (for example, the 86-87 group) is permitted to apply, any person older than that group may also apply.
Many people in the over 80 age group have been having difficulty making appointments, hence the necessity to further narrow the age group.
Around 33,000 people in Cyprus fall within over 80s category and, up to now, more than 12,000 have been given the Pfizer vaccine.
The health ministry said that on Monday 1,859 vaccines were administered throughout the Republic, of which 499 were second-dose vaccines. On Sunday, 333 people in care homes received their second dose.
The announcement of pharmaceutical company Pfizer earlier this month saying it would temporarily reduce deliveries to Europe while it upgrades its production capacity has spooked many governments in the EU.
But issues locally have also seemingly made the vaccination process more challenging.
One complaint that arose concerned the geographical distribution of vaccination centres, which for example forced some people living in Polis to travel all the way to Kyperounda.
Another issue was the opening of the vaccination appointment portal at midnight, which led many people unable to stay up until that time and missed their opportunity. As a result, most of the available appointments were taken up by the early morning hours.
This has since been addressed, with the portal henceforth going live early in the morning for each round of appointments.
There also appear to be some discrepancies between the number of vaccines received by various EU member states.
As Reuters reported last week, the German health ministry says on its website that the country – with a population of 83 million – will receive nearly 4 million Pfizer doses by the end of January.
Romania, with a population four times smaller, says it expects to receive only 600,000 doses in the same period. Bulgaria, with less than one-tenth of Germany’s population, expects to receive only about 60,000 Pfizer shots in January, in proportion much less than Germany.
