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COVID-19 VACCINE UPDATE: Nearly 50 people in Longyearbyen have received at least one dose; all residents 65 and older expected to be finished soon; officials contacting next on list

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Although it took a few weeks for more than a literal few doses to arrive, a total of 49 people in Longyearbyen have received at least one COVID-19 vaccination shot as of Friday, according to Longyearbyen Hospital.

Vaccinating all residents 65 and older should be completed soon and anyone in that age group who has not been contacted by officials within two weeks of today (Feb. 26) should contact the hospital, a press release issued Friday by The Governor of Svalbard stated.

Other local residents will then be contacted about vaccinations in the priority order established by Norway’s government. In addition to those 65 and older, those with active cancer in treatment are at the top of current list.

“We refer to the tax office’s list of persons registered as residents of Longyearbyen,” said Knut Selmer, the hospital’s infection control doctor. “We contact these individuals continuously, but the number of vaccines we receive per week is still limited.”

Only one vial containing five doses was sent to Svalbard to be administered to patients at the beginning of January, as Norway began vaccinating people during the last few days of 2020. The next shipment didn’t arrive until about three weeks later, but as of Friday five people have received both vaccine doses and 44 one dose.

Svalbard remains one of the few areas in the world with no officially diagnosed COVID-19 cases.

 

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
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