Covid-19 in Austria: 50% of Total Population Vaccinated, Focus on Young Adults
Austria has reached the milestone of vaccinating 50 percent of all people in Austria. The pace of Covid-19 vaccinations remains high and Vienna will particularly focus on young adults in July. Read more about the developments below.
Vienna's City Councillor for Health Peter Hacker (left) has declared July to be "Immunization Month for the Young". / Picture: © Magistrat der Stadt Wien / PID / David Bohmann
More than 50 percent of all people in Austria have received at least one Covid-19 vaccination. Austrian Health Minister Mückstein is pleased about this milestone: "The pace of Covid-19 vaccinations remains high. So far, we have already been able to carry out around 6.9 million vaccinations and provide more than 4.4 million people in Austria with initial protection against the Covid-19 virus. That is already every second person in the country. Thank you to everyone who is working here every day."
According to the Austrian Health Minstry, the figures for the younger population, which have been rising sharply for days, are also particularly pleasing. Mückstein commented: "Among 16 to 25-year-olds, 34 percent have already received a vaccination. That is already more than every third person. Even among 12 to 15-year-olds, where vaccination has only been possible for a few days, 6.3 percent have already received at least one vaccination within a very short time."
Focus on Young Adults
With regard to the younger generation, Vienna has recently announced that there will be 35,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson exclusively available for young adults between the age of 18 and 30. In an interview with "Wien heute", Vienna's City Councillor for Health Peter Hacker declared July to be "Immunization Month for the Young". This is "urgently necessary and highly timely", according to Hacker.
The 35,000 vaccine doses are just the "first step in the planning" for this age group, Hacker added. In July, further tens of thousands of dates are then to be added - depending on the exact vaccine deliveries, which are not yet known in detail. Those could then be vaccines other than Johnson & Johnson again, Hacker said. But whatever vaccine is delivered in July should be used primarily for the benefit of young people, he emphasized. Overall, though, he said, they still don't have enough vaccine for everyone who has preregistered.
As of the 22nd day after the Johnson & Johnson vaccination, one is fully immunized. "No second appointment. No hassles," Hacker spokesman Mario Dujakovic tweeted on Twitter.
According to the spokesman, 43 percent of 30- to 39-year-olds in Vienna have already been vaccinated for the first time, compared with 36 percent of 20- to 29-year-olds and 15 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds. In the twelve- to 15-year-old age group, only 0.7 percent have received the first sting so far. "Younger people have been in solidarity with older people. Now it's only fair to focus more on them when vaccinating," Dujakovic tweeted.
Second Vaccine
Aside from the vaccination campaign for young adults, it will now also be particularly important to provide everyone with their second vaccination dose in the next few weeks. Mückstein explains this as follows: "For long-term and complete vaccination protection, the second partial vaccination is usually particularly important. The data show us that the vaccination is thus also particularly effective against new virus variants and thus antibodies can also be built up in the longer term."
In conclusion, the Minister of Health therefore also appeals to the population: "Make sure you attend your vaccination appointments, especially the second one. In this way, you will receive the best possible vaccination protection and will also be better protected against the new virus variants. Together, we will be able to push back the pandemic bit by bit.