The second booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine has been taken by 1.8 million people since April - said Minister of Health Adam Niedzielski on Wednesday, not hiding that this result is far from satisfactory. Next week, the Ministry of Health will launch the "I want to understand" campaign, which is to shift the emphasis in communication to persuading those who have doubts.
"I want to understand", that is, the Ministry's idea of convincing the unconvinced
Published Sept. 29, 2022 08:30
From September 16, people over 12 years of age can take the second booster dose in Poland. For almost two weeks, 300,000 people registered, of which 205,000 took the "omicron" version of the COVID-19 vaccine. Previously, over 1.5 million people took the basic version of one of the mRNA vaccines as a second booster. Meanwhile, almost 12 million people are vaccinated with the third dose, and over 23 million with the basic scheme.
From October 3, vaccinations will start with a booster dose for children aged 5-11 years. This is the effect of the EMA recommendation. On the night of October 2/3, the health ministry will issue about half a million e-referrals for this group - so many children have been vaccinated with the basic scheme. Vaccinations will be carried out with a preparation approved for this age group, the same preparation used for basic vaccination.
According to Minister Niedzielski, the epidemic situation is stable, with a tendency to decrease in infections, although at the moment the number of hospitalizations is increasing. This is the effect, as Niedzielski admitted, of the emergence of hospital outbreaks of infections in some provinces.
The head of the health ministry emphasized that although in October, due to the academic year, there may be an increase in the number of new cases in some places, he does not expect a reversal of the trend, and the ministry forecasts the apogee of the next wave at the turn of December and January. According to Adam Niedzielski, this is the best time to speed up the vaccination campaign.
- Today we want to initiate a new campaign to convince people to vaccinate, not just encourage them. It will be a qualitative change, because the campaign will be directed to a different group than before, said Minister Niedzielski. In his opinion, Poland needs a "new impulse" in the approach to vaccination: - At this stage, when the vaccine has been accepted by several billion people in the world, we are dealing with a preparation tested not only on test groups, but real results regarding adverse post-vaccination reactions - he said . Adam Niedzielski emphasized that the campaign is based on the assumption of voluntary vaccination. "The decision to vaccinate is autonomous," he said. - So far we said: let's get vaccinated, now we convince ourselves of it in the convention: what do you need to know what information to collect in order to make a decision which, as we know, evokes emotions and is the resultant of many factors in the human environment. We want to help in making this decision by providing factual knowledge - he explained. Niedzielski referred to the results of the focus group studies, which were to show that some of the unvaccinated explain their decision with internal resistance caused by "pressure caused by persuasion".
A new website, gov.pl/chcezrozumiec, will be launched next week. There you will find information on doubts and questions about vaccinations. Three spots promoting the social campaign were also prepared.
