Poland’s government is offering Johnson & Johnson vaccines without prior registration at mobile vaccination points in each of Poland’s 16 provincial capitals over the long May weekend.
To be eligible, those who want the vaccine will need to have an e-referral. These are currently available to all those aged 36 and over, according to the government’s vaccine timetable. Younger year groups who had expressed a willingness to be vaccinated in January are also eligible for the e-referral now.
Those with a referral will not need to book an appointment, but rather turn up at the vaccination points over the long weekend (with Monday being a national holiday) to receive the jab without registration. The J&J vaccine – which only requires a single dose – will be administered by medical professionals.
During a press conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that the government was “shifting up a gear” in its vaccination drive. He said that mobile points – such as tents, trucks and containers – will serve to “deliver vaccines where there are none” and also “have a promotional function”.
“Today we have more and more vaccines, so we want to be able to administer these vaccines through an increasing number of channels to reach citizens,” he said.
To ramp up the vaccination rate, the government would also pilot the administration of jabs by nurses and paramedics, said Michał Dworczyk, the minister in charge of the national vaccines programme.
Local authorities have already started preparing mobile vaccine spots ahead of tomorrow’s opening. The governor of Małopolska Province estimates that the mobile point set up on Kraków’s market square will vaccinate 2,500 people over the long weekend, reports Dziennik Polski.
Also this week, the council of Wałbrzych has approved a resolution making COVID-19 vaccinations obligatory for its residents and people working in the city. The city’s mayor has appealed to the health ministry to do the same at the national level.
On Thursday Poland recorded its highest daily total of coronavirus vaccinations to date, more than 330,000. The total number of jabs administered now exceeds 11 million, and 8.3 million people have received at least one dose.
“The national vaccinations programme is becoming a national programme of responsibility,” said Morawiecki on Thursday. “How quickly we deal with this terrible disease depends on how quickly we will be able to vaccinate most Poles.”
The prime minister also said that he had spoken with the head of Pfizer on Wednesday about “projects” related to vaccines that the company could implement in Poland.
Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
