Over 42,000 Covid vaccine doses applied to people without registration since mid-July

Prague, Aug 4 (ČTK) – More than 42,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been applied in the centers where people can come without previous registration in the Czech Republic, according to the Health Ministry's statistical data. These started opening July 12.

The first such centers opened in the capital of Prague, while other regions followed. They are often situated in big shopping centers.

The Prague centers in Westfield Chodov and at the main station Hlavní nádraží opened 23 days ago. Both now offer vaccines to self-payers as well.

These days, more people are coming for the second Pfizer-BioNTech dose to the Chodov centre, and the number of the applied second doses is higher than that of the first ones, representatives of the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) operating the center have tweeted.

Since its opening, more than 19,000 vaccine doses have been applied in this center, which is almost half of all doses that the centers without registration reported to have applied in the vaccination information system. The number of doses applied in Chodov has exceeded 1,000 a day several times, most recently on Monday.

There is still a high interest in the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (also called Janssen) vaccine administered at the main station in Prague, Eva Libigerová, spokeswoman for the Bulovka Teaching Hospital which runs the center, said. On Monday, 530 people received this vaccine and on Tuesday, 440. In total, more than 8,000 administered doses have been applied there.

Besides, the Motol Teaching Hospital is operating another vaccination center in Prague, situated in the Nový Smíchov shopping center, where over 3,700 people have been inoculated since July 19, Hana Frydrychová from the communication center said.

Further Covid vaccination centers without registration are opening in Prague and other regions, as this strategy to get more people vaccinated has proven successful.

They are situated, for instance, in shopping centers in the regional capitals of Brno, Ostrava, Ústí nad Labem, Olomouc, and Hradec Králové. In Brno and Ostrava, some 4,500 vaccine doses have been applied, in Olomouc, over 2,300, and in Ústí nad Labem, roughly 1,600.

In the centers offering a choice between two vaccines, people tend to prefer the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

To have enough doses of the Johnson & Johnson in these vaccination centers, this vaccine will not be delivered to general practitioners anymore. Petr Šonka, head of the Association of General Practitioners, told Czech Radio that people showed lower interested in this vaccine in GPs’ offices in July, and so about 200,000 doses were handed to the state. In August, the firm is to deliver 90,000 doses to the Czech Republic. The single-dose vaccine is used also by mobile vaccination teams, for example those that vaccinate in socially excluded localities.

A vaccination bus has been launched in the Pardubice region, and some 300 people have gotten vaccinated at the first stop of its tour. It will continue to smaller towns on the region.

Unregistered people could also get vaccinated in a bus in Prague. This weekend, it was possible at the Prague Zoo where about 200 people used this opportunity.

This week, other centers in hospitals started vaccinating against Covid-19 even without registration. Since Tuesday, unregistered people have been able to get vaccinated in the Congress Center in Prague and since today, also at the Central Military Hospital and the National Vaccination Center in the O2 universum.

The Covid vaccination campaign started in the Czech Republic on Dec. 27, 2020. Since then, more than 10 million vaccine doses have been applied. According to the Health Ministry data , more than 5.69 million people or 46 percent of the 10.7 million-population have received at least one dose, while 4.93 million have the vaccination completed.

Experts warn that at least 70 percent of the inhabitants should be vaccinated to reach collective immunity and prevent the virus spread among the unvaccinated.

Covid vaccination centers without registration: