VIENNA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd December, 2020) Vaccination against COVID-19 is necessary to protect the population, especially the elderly, and may change the course of the global pandemic, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday.
According to the chancellor, the vaccination campaign in Austria will be launched on Sunday at 09:00 a.m. local time (08:00 GMT). The country will use a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, recently approved by the European Union's medical regulator.
"Among people over 75, the [COVID-19] mortality rate is about 10 percent, among people over 85, the mortality rate is extremely high � one in four dies. This shows the importance of the fact that with vaccination we will finally radically change the situation, we can protect all of us, and the elderly are in priority," Kurz said at a press conference.
The chancellor added that risk groups � people over 80 years old, especially residents of retirement homes, and health workers � will receive vaccines first. Ursula Wiedermann-Schmidt, the chairwoman of the vaccine commission, and Thomas Szekeres, the chairman of the Austrian Medical Chamber, will lead the campaign.
Meanwhile, Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said that the country aims to vaccinate all residents of retirement homes by the end of January. Moreover, the minister wished that the EU would soon allow the distribution of vaccines developed by other companies, namely Moderna and AstraZeneca.
In addition, Anschober said that five volunteers who are over 80 years old will be the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Austria.
