All Icelandic residents who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 will have a rough idea tomorrow of when they will be called in for vaccination. Authorities will use a lottery system, drawing birth years out of a pot, to determine the order in which residents will be called in for their shot. Director of Capital Area Healthcare Centres Óskar Reykdalsson told Fréttablaðið that some 120,000-150,000 doses will be administered in the next 20 days. A similar ordering has already been published for residents outside the capital area.
In Iceland 49.9% of residents have already received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine while 26.7% are fully vaccinated. Icelandic authorities are in the final stages of vaccinating priority groups against COVID-19, including school staff, and began randomised vaccination of the general population this week. Birth years were randomly selected the old-fashioned way: by drawing slips of paper out of a pot. Eligible residents were informed by SMS with short notice, often having ten or 15 minutes to show up at the mass vaccination centre in Laugardalshöll stadium.
Throughout the week, some members of the public called for all the birth years to be selected immediately, as it appears authorities are answering that call. The remaining groups will all be drawn tomorrow, giving residents who have not yet been vaccinated a rough idea of when they will be called in. Authorities have stated that 90% of those 16 and over will receive their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of June.
The draw will take place at 10.00am tomorrow morning at the Capital Area Healthcare Centres’ headquarters, located at Mjódd in Reykjavík.
