Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about the coro­n­avirus vaccinations

Has been updat­ed on the 23rd of August 2021

Below is a com­pi­la­tion of ques­tions about coro­n­avirus vac­cines and arrang­ing vac­ci­na­tions in Soite’s area. The ques­tions were answered by Soite’s chief physi­cian of infec­tious dis­eases, med­ical direc­tor and the direc­tor for the ser­vice sec­tion Health cen­tre ser­vices. The Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare (THL) has also been used as a source.

Please note that the sit­u­a­tion changes quick­ly. Many prac­ti­cal ques­tions are resolved as vac­cines arrive in the area and as the spring pro­gress­es. The con­tent of this page is updat­ed when the sit­u­a­tion changes.

What is the vac­ci­na­tion order based on in Soite?

Soite fol­lows Finland’s COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion strat­e­gy (in Finnish). The vac­ci­na­tion order is the same in the whole of Fin­land.

The objec­tives of the coro­n­avirus vac­ci­na­tions in Fin­land is most impor­tant­ly to low­er the dis­ease bur­den of COVID-19, i.e. severe cas­es, pre­ma­ture deaths and years of poten­tial life lost and to main­tain the func­tion­ing of the health care system.

How is the age-lim­it for vac­ci­na­tions deter­mined: based on the year of birth or based on the date of birth?

If you have turned e.g. 70, you have the right to vac­ci­na­tion, i.e. the date of birth is the deter­min­ing fac­tor, not the year of birth. Soite acts in accor­dance with instruc­tions from the Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare THL.

Can I in some way make my vac­ci­na­tion turn come sooner?

It is not pos­si­ble to jump in the queue or push past oth­ers. The rules are nation­wide and the same for every­one.

Patience is now need­ed — every­one gets their turn even­tu­al­ly. The most impor­tant thing is that the vac­ci­na­tions are pro­ceed­ing and that we are com­ing clos­er to herd immunity.

What COVID-19 vac­cines does Soite use?

In Soite’s area, basi­cal­ly healthy 12–65-year-old per­sons are vac­ci­nat­ed with mRNA vac­cines (Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comir­naty or Moderna’s vac­cine). More infor­ma­tion on coro­n­avirus vac­cines and answers to fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions can be found on THL’s web­site.

Per­sons over the age of 65 are vac­ci­nat­ed in accor­dance with instruc­tions from The Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare THL. The Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare THL decid­ed that 65–69-year-old per­sons may also be vac­ci­nat­ed with mRNA vac­cines from the begin­ning of May if the per­son who is to be vac­ci­nat­ed so choos­es (more infor­ma­tion in THL’s text in Finnish). In Soite’s area, this means that per­sons over the age of 65 may choose if they are vac­ci­nat­ed with an mRNA vac­cine (Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comir­naty or Mod­er­na) or with AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria vac­cine. If the appoint­ment is booked online, the per­son must choose the vac­cine they want to have in the Oma­hoito service.

Please note! Excep­tions are per­sons over the age of 65 who have had a sinus throm­bo­sis or who have had a low platelet count in con­nec­tion with treat­ment with heparin (throm­bo­cy­tope­nia, HIT): these per­sons are always vac­ci­nat­ed with mRNA vac­cines (Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comir­naty or Mod­er­na). If you have had such an ill­ness, please book your appoint­ment by phone.

The sec­ond vac­cine dose is giv­en in accor­dance with THL’s instructions:

• persons over the age of 65 who have received a dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine are primarily given AstraZeneca’s vaccine when they are vaccinated for the second time.
• persons under the age of 65 are always given an mRNA vaccine when they are vaccinated for the second time. A person under the age of 65 cannot choose AstraZeneca’s vaccine as their second vaccine dose even if they have been vaccinated with it the first time.

Why has the phone and online book­ing func­tioned so slow­ly dur­ing the first weeks of vac­ci­na­tions? Why has not more resources been added to answer­ing phones?

The num­ber of per­sons who answer phones has been increased, but dur­ing the win­ter hol­i­day week (week 9) the num­ber of per­sons answer­ing phones was small­er than nor­mal­ly. On Tues­day the 2nd of March 700 phone calls were answered and a much greater num­ber of appoint­ments were giv­en out.

It is also good to note that oth­er health care and social ser­vices func­tion nor­mal­ly despite the coro­n­avirus epi­dem­ic. Not all resources can be used for the coro­n­avirus work. As many employ­ees as pos­si­ble have been assigned to the coro­n­avirus work.

The num­ber of per­sons who have con­tact­ed Soite’s appoint­ment book­ing online has sur­prised even those who are experts on the soft­ware. The online book­ing sys­tem has peri­od­i­cal­ly been down because of an over­load, but the sys­tem is con­tin­u­al­ly devel­oped further.

If the appoint­ment book­ing is con­gest­ed because of the num­ber of per­sons who use it, does that mean that appoint­ments can­not be booked and that not all vac­cines are used?

Appoint­ments are giv­en out as long as appoint­ments are avail­able. Con­ges­tion in the tele­phone or online book­ing does not slow down the progress of vac­ci­na­tions and all vac­cines are used. In Soite, zero vac­cines have been wast­ed.

Via the tele­phone book­ing, we take clients onto the so called wait­ing list. If some­one is not able to come to a vac­ci­na­tion they have booked, e.g. because of ill­ness, we call some­one on the wait­ing list and offer a vac­ci­na­tion. This is one way of pre­vent­ing vac­cines from being wasted.

Why does Soite not call all res­i­dents in the area and arrange a vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ment individually?

The num­ber of per­sons over the age of 70 alone is 12 500 in Soite’s area. It would be very slow work to call all of them in order to arrange an appoint­ment indi­vid­u­al­ly.

Soite tried call­ing some spe­cial groups who belong to risk group 1 and are reg­u­lar­ly in con­tact with Soite. This, how­ev­er, was found to be a slow course of action as every third or fourth per­son did not answer even on the third try.

Res­i­dents in Soite’s area are, how­ev­er, also in some degree con­tact­ed by phone. For exam­ple, 16–17-year-old per­sons who belong to risk group 1 are con­tact­ed by Soite’s unit for chil­dren and young peo­ple in order to arrange a vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ment. This is pos­si­ble as the group is very small.

Fur­ther­more, start­ing week 10 we will call all per­sons over the age of 80 who have not yet been vaccinated.

Why can­not all res­i­dents be called at least in the small­est munic­i­pal­i­ties in Soite’s area?

The appoint­ment book­ing for coro­n­avirus vac­ci­na­tions is arranged in an equal man­ner in the whole of Soite.

Why are vac­ci­na­tions arranged only at a few vac­ci­na­tion sites? Could not vac­ci­na­tions be arranged on Soite’s premis­es in small­er munic­i­pal­i­ties along­side oth­er work?

Stor­ing, trans­port­ing and prepar­ing the vac­cines is care­ful­ly reg­u­lat­ed. Prepar­ing the deep-frozen vac­cine (Pfiz­er) for use requires a cer­tain chain of mea­sures in order to keep the vac­cine effec­tive. Soite does not want to com­pro­mise any vac­cine dos­es. This is why the vac­ci­na­tions have been con­cen­trat­ed to a few vac­ci­na­tion sites.

Why does it seem like oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties begin vac­ci­nat­ing younger age groups soon­er than Soite?

In Soite, we strive to vac­ci­nate the age group whose turn it is to be vac­ci­nat­ed as exten­sive­ly as pos­si­ble before we move to the next age group. Appoint­ments for vac­ci­na­tions are giv­en for the cur­rent or the fol­low­ing week and we do not open appoint­ment book­ing e.g. a month before­hand. In oth­er words, we always vac­ci­nate the age group whose turn it is to be vac­ci­nat­ed. The vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age gives a more accu­rate pic­ture of how the vac­ci­na­tions are pro­gress­ing than the open­ing of appoint­ment book­ing. We rec­om­mend fol­low­ing Soite’s vac­ci­na­tion indi­ca­tor to see how the vac­ci­na­tions are progressing.

I am not cer­tain if I dare to get vac­ci­nat­ed when it is my turn. Is it safe?

The author­i­ties for med­i­c­i­nal prod­ucts only grant a mar­ket­ing autho­ri­sa­tion to a vac­cine that has been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly demon­strat­ed to be both effec­tive and safe. The author­i­ties con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the safe­ty and effec­tive­ness of a vac­cine even after it is on the mar­ket.

Coro­n­avirus vac­cines are eval­u­at­ed on the same qual­i­ty, safe­ty and effi­ca­cy cri­te­ria as oth­er med­i­cines. Even though a COVID-19 vac­cine has come quick­ly out onto the mar­ket, it has under­gone the same phas­es of research as oth­er vac­cines. The vac­cine can be trusted.

Vac­cine tri­als con­cern­ing the new­ly intro­duced COVID-19 vac­cines have involved tens of thou­sands of vol­un­tary sub­jects, both in Europe and else­where around the world.

All vac­cines can have adverse effects. Most adverse effects of vac­cines are mild and tran­sient, such as red­ness at the injec­tion site, fever, mus­cle pain and headache.  It is, how­ev­er, safe to get vaccinated.

How do I book an appoint­ment for the sec­ond vac­ci­na­tion dose?

The appoint­ment book­ing only applies to the first dose of vac­cine. The appoint­ment regard­ing the boost­er dose is booked at the vac­ci­na­tion site dur­ing the first appoint­ment. An appoint­ment for the sec­ond vac­ci­na­tion has been giv­en in con­nec­tion with the first vaccination.

How do I change the appoint­ment for the sec­ond vac­ci­na­tion dose?

If an insur­mount­able obsta­cle occurs and the sec­ond vac­ci­na­tion appoint­ment must be changed, please con­tact the sec­re­tary at Soite’s vac­ci­na­tion cen­tral, phone 040 804 2821 Mon­day, Wednes­day, Thurs­day and Fri­day between 8 am and 15 pm and Tues­day between 8 am and 12 noon.

Must a per­son who has been vac­ci­nat­ed go to a coro­n­avirus test?

Yes, espe­cial­ly if you have symp­toms that fit the coro­n­avirus or have been exposed to the coro­n­avirus. The coro­n­avirus vac­cines pre­vent viral infec­tions, excre­tion of the virus and trans­mis­sion from one per­son to anoth­er well, but a coro­n­avirus vac­ci­na­tion does not com­plete­ly elim­i­nate the risk of an infec­tion and the risk of trans­mit­ting it to oth­er peo­ple. In oth­er words, even if you have been vac­ci­nat­ed, you may infect oth­ers. The coro­n­avirus vac­cines offer pro­tec­tion espe­cial­ly against the severe forms of the coro­n­avirus dis­ease. The symp­toms are milder in per­sons who have been vac­ci­nat­ed and the trans­mit the virus in a less­er degree. More infor­ma­tion on THL’s web­site: Effi­ca­cy of vac­cines against COVID-19.

Infor­ma­tion about the coro­n­avirus vaccine

The Finnish Med­i­cines Agency Fimea and the Finnish Insti­tute for Health and wel­fare THL mon­i­tor the adverse effects and the safe­ty of the COVID-19 vac­cines care­ful­ly — no sur­pris­ing adverse effects have come to light  (THL, in Finnish)

Ques­tions and answers about the coro­n­avirus vac­cine (Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare THL)

Ques­tions and answers about the coro­n­avirus vac­cine (The Finnish Med­i­cines Agency Fimea

Coro­n­avirus vac­cines in Fin­land (the Min­istry of Social Affairs and health)

Infor­ma­tion about the coro­n­avirus vac­cine (ECDC)