Austria has set an ambitious target of two million vaccinations by Easter. But with delivery delays and internal strife including the resignation of the public health official charged with purchasing vaccines for Austria, will these targets be met?

Two million doses by Easter? 

Health Minister Rudolph Anschober said last month he wants to achieve two million vaccinations against the coronavirus by Easter, meaning one million Austrians would be fully vaccinated with two doses.

This will mean giving a million doses in three weeks, or around 48,000 doses a day. On Friday, Austria managed to give 49,000 jabs in 24 hours, showing in theory this is possible. 

Is there enough vaccine being delivered? 

The Corona vaccination dashboard also shows deliveries of coronavirus vaccine. It shows:

• Pfizer Biontech has delivered 878,085 doses so far, and is expected to deliver 280,800 in March and a further 789,750 in April.
• Moderna has delivered 122,400 doses so far. It will deliver 74,400 in March and 115,200 doses in April.
• AstraZeneca shows 369,600 doses have been delivered, with 306,800 in March. There is no data for how many doses it will deliver in April. 

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control or ECDC data, in total 981,435 vaccine doses had been delivered to Austria by the EU as of 7th March 2021

Will I be vaccinated by the summer?

Health Minister Rudolf Aschober told the Kurier newspaper on 15th March that he is assuming that enough quantities will be available by the end of June to supply all those who want to be vaccinated.

In February, Anschober announced Austria had ordered an additional six million doses of vaccine, with 4.7 million extra doses from Moderna, which will be available at the end of the second quarter of the year.

This brings the total of vaccines ordered for Austria up to 31 million doses of vaccines.

Which state is vaccinating fastest? 

As at March 14th, Tyrol is leading the way, with 11.65 percent of the population vaccinated. As reported by The Local on March 3rd, the EU sent extra vaccine doses to Tyrol in order to help curb the outbreak of the South African mutation. 

Vorarlberg has vaccinated 9.72 percent of the population, followed by Burgenland with 9.42 percent. 

The slowest state on a per capita basis is Vienna, where 7.5 percent of the population have been vaccinated. 

How many vaccines are sitting in storage? 

Austria had used 83.6 percent of the 981,435 vaccine doses which has been delivered to it by the EU as of 7 March 2021, according to ECDC data. 

UPDATED: How can I get vaccinated for Covid-19 in Austria?

How does Austria compare to other EU countries?

Austria is behind Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania and Malta in its vaccine rollout, and is at around ninth place out of the 30 states taking part in the EU’s vaccination programme.

Denmark has a similar population and has vaccinated 12 percent of its population as opposed to Austria’s 10 percent.