More than half of Croatia's population is at risk of developing a severe form of COVID-19, that risk is high for more than a million people while more than 1.5 million are in the category of at-risk people, the Vecernji List daily says on Thursday.

The daily says the data comes from a COVID-19 vaccination plan which has already been prepared and which defines, among other things, vaccination priorities.

According to the plan, current priority groups are health workers, residents of retirement and nursing homes and their staff, as well as employees of other welfare institutions.

These groups are followed by people above the age of 80, followed by people aged 75-79, people aged 70-74, and people aged 65-69. They are followed by adults under the age of 60 with high or moderate risk and others. The others category covers, for example, education workers.

The plan also provides for the vaccination of vulnerable groups, namely people who are at risk of developing a severe form of the disease or complications or are at risk of dying, the daily says.

First vaccines could be available in Croatia by New Year

The Jutarnji List daily reports today that the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech could be made available to US and European citizens by the end of December.

The vaccine is expected to be registered by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) around December 10, and the first vaccinations could start in the US the next day.

As for the EU, the registration of the vaccine with the European Medicines Agency could be completed a few days later and EU countries could obtain the first, modest quantities of the vaccine already by December 20, depending on their population size.

According to some reports, Croatia could obtain between 20,000 and a maximum of 50,000 vaccines by the New Year, which would be used primarily to vaccinate medical workers and staff at retirement homes.

Since the vaccine, which is up to 95% efficient, is applied twice, within a space of 14 days, this means that the quantity will be sufficient for the vaccination of 10,000-25,000 people.