Responding to a parliamentary question about the vaccination procedure last week, health minister Paulette Lenert (LSAP) wrote that the 9,700 vaccines for 4,850 people could only be delivered to a single location, because of the need to store the vaccine at -75°C.

“Subsequent deliveries should primarily go to the hospitals that vaccinate their staff and the staff of their subcontractors on their site,” she wrote.

The minister added that no date for further deliveries in January had been definitively confirmed.

In Luxembourg, covid-19 vaccines are being fully subsidised by the state with priority given to healthcare workers. The vaccination strategy was developed by parliament's ethics committee.

The European Commission has secured a broad portfolio of more than 2 billion vaccines to be produced in Europe, including contracts already signed with AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, BioNtech-Pfizer, CureVac, and Moderna. In December, it concluded exploratory talks with Novavax for the purchase of 100 million doses by member states and the option to purchase 100 million more.

So far, the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine is the only one to receive a positive assessment from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on its safety and efficacy. The European Commission is currently waiting for the EMA's opinion and marketing authorisation for the Moderna vaccine. The latter is expected for 6 January 2021. According to the European Commission, no other vaccine producer has formally applied for a marketing authorisation to EMA.