Coronavirus, Corona | Huge differences: Among no immigrants, vaccine coverage is very low
For several groups, less than 40 are protected. For those born in Norway, the situation is completely different.
The government cheered, and Norwegians breathed a sigh of relief: Norway received one million extra doses from Poland, and around 350,000 doses from a number of Eastern European countries. As before, Denmark had received one million extra vaccine doses from Romania.
Suddenly, for the first time in the pandemic, Norway had enough vaccines.
We received the doses because there was great vaccine skepticism in these countries which meant that they were not allowed to use the vaccines. Only 52 percent of the population in Poland is now fully vaccinated, while the proportion in Romania is poor 30 percent.
By comparison, 68 percent of the entire population in Norway is fully vaccinated, and 67 percent in Sweden.
Huge difference in who takes the vaccine in Norway
The pandemic has hit immigrants the hardest in Norway, both in terms of the number of infected and among those who have ended up in hospital.
FHI has now published new figures on the vaccination rate among groups in Norway based on country of birth, and it shows that immigrants from the countries that provided more vaccines are at the very bottom of vaccine coverage.
– Among persons 18 years and older, the proportion vaccinated with the 2nd dose is highest among Norwegian-born (90%) and persons born in Vietnam (88%), Thailand (87%), Denmark (85%) and the United Kingdom (85%) and lowest among people born in Lithuania (41%), Poland (39%), Romania (38%) and Latvia (38%), reports FHI.
Bukholm: – Work is being done on measures to increase vaccination coverage
According to department head Geir Bukholm at FHI, there are probably several reasons for the large changes:
– This may be due to the Norwegian authorities not reaching out with good enough information. It may be a general skepticism about vaccination and a general skepticism about government-initiated measures and recommendations, and it may be because a case has received the vaccine in the home country without this being registered in Norway, Bukholm writes in an e-mail to Nettavisen.
– Systematic work is being done to map this, and measures are being worked on to increase vaccination coverage in these population groups. This includes targeted information measures and includes the involvement of people in the immigrant population, who can be spokespersons who can contribute to greater support for the vaccination program, says the vaccine manager.