Corona | Helsinki will expand the appointment booking for the fourth corona vaccinations in the coming days

in Helsinki we will open an appointment for the fourth corona vaccination for 70-79-year-olds in the next few days. The city will inform about this separately.

Later, appointments for the fourth vaccination will also be opened for those in risk groups aged 18–69 and for those aged 60–69.

The Health and Welfare Institute THL issued a new recommendation that municipalities should start offering the fourth vaccine doses to the aforementioned population groups already in July or on August 1 at the latest. Previously, THL recommended that the fourth vaccinations for new groups start on August 15.

THL gave a new recommendation after the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC and the European Medicines Agency EMA issued their own recommendation on July 11. They recommended that countries should immediately start offering fourth vaccine doses to all 60-79-year-olds and risk groups of severe corona disease.

All 80-year-olds and younger age groups at the greatest risk of serious disease and death have been offered fourth doses of the vaccine since March and May.

For the time being, THL’s recommendation does not apply to 12–17-year-olds in the risk group. The children’s sub-working group of the national vaccination expert group KRAR will discuss the continuation of the children’s corona vaccination program at the beginning of August and make its own proposal.

Recommendation nor does it apply to social and healthcare professionals, who still have good protection against serious corona disease. According to THL, the protection provided by current corona vaccines against infection and mild disease caused by omikron’s BA.4 and BA.5 variants is small and short-lived.

According to THL, in the case of booster vaccinations for STD professionals, it is worth waiting for vaccines tailored against virus variants, which is also the position of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.