Anyone who is afraid of becoming infected with corona should cancel a trip to Urk or Staphorst. The two Orthodox Christian municipalities currently have the lowest vaccination rate in the Netherlands. In Urk, only one in five people over the age of 12 has two injections in the arm, in Staphorst this is 44 percent of the inhabitants.
This is apparent from raw data that the National Institute for Public Health & the Environment (RIVM) published on Wednesday. These are figures that were not available before, which meant that municipalities had to find out how they were doing on the basis of data on vaccination readiness. They didn’t exactly know.
That’s different now. The grades that are available and will be updated weekly from now on are somewhat like the list of test results that is hung on the blackboard, showing the worst and best child in the class. The average vaccination rate, when it comes to two shots in people over the age of 12 (becoming the starting point for all figures in this article), is 70 percent.
Among the municipalities with a very low vaccination coverage are more places with many Orthodox Reformed inhabitants, such as Neder-Betuwe, Barneveld, Renswoude, Tholen, Nunspeet, Reimerswaal; the Zeeland starting point of the Bible belt. Not surprising that they are at the top, because of the time-honored aversion to vaccinations.
Many are not vaccinated even in large cities
Residents of the largest municipalities in the Netherlands do not always like to go to a screening location. In Utrecht it is relatively easy, but in Amsterdam, The Hague and especially in Rotterdam a large part of the population is not vaccinated.
Just over half (55 percent) of Rotterdam residents have had two shots. In The Hague this is 58 percent. This puts both cities in the top 10 of the lowest scoring cities. Amsterdam is doing slightly better with 59 percent.
In these municipalities, the differences per district are large, the GGDs have previously announced. In the deprived areas there is suspicion against the vaccine, because of disinformation and mistrust of the government. Most people who do not have sufficient command of the Dutch language live in these neighbourhoods, so that the government and GGDs cannot reach them sufficiently.
In addition, the houses in those neighborhoods are smaller than in the affluent areas, which further increases the risk of contamination. This is also reflected in the hospitals. Immigrant Dutch, who live more than average in deprived areas, end up in hospital four times as often.
In Brabant, the prick enthusiasm is great
In the cities in Brabant that have been hit so hard by corona, especially in the first wave, the enthusiasm to be vaccinated is greater than average. For example, Uden, Boekel and Gemert-Bakel, the focal point of the first wave, note 73, 74 and another 74 percent, respectively.
In general, the vaccination rate is slightly higher in municipalities where more people over 65 live. This is clearly visible in the province of Zeeland. Sluis and Schouwen-Duiveland have relatively old inhabitants, just like Lochem and Bronkhorst in Gelderland. In those municipalities, the vaccination rate is above 75 percent.
Conversely, the conclusion can also be drawn that municipalities with many young residents are less than average enthusiastic about a shot. This can be seen in the large cities, but also in a relatively young province such as Flevoland, where the willingness to prick is low. Urk is the youngest municipality in the Netherlands.
The Wadden at the top
The Wadden Islands are the absolute frontrunners, led by Terschelling, with a vaccination rate of 86 percent, followed by Ameland with 85 percent. The elderly on the Wadden Islands received their vaccination at the beginning of this year, and the rest of the population followed in June – earlier than the rest of the Netherlands.
That preferential treatment, the enthusiasm that came with the prick campaign and the fact that pricks took place on the islands themselves and not ashore, must have made a difference. High in the list are also a number of places from the top-10 richest municipalities: Alphen-Chaam, Rozendaal, Hilvarenbeek and Bunnik.
Also read:
Who are those unvaccinated? And how can the government still reach them?
Although the vaccination rate in the Netherlands is high, 1.8 million people still have no injection in their arm. Who are they?
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