The new Pfizer and Moderna booster vaccines have been given approval by the European Medicines Agency for over-12s, and another booster campaign is planned for the second half of September.

Although the current vaccines protect against serious sickness, they have become less good at protecting against a coronavirus infection due to mutations in the virus, reports NOS.

The EMA expects the new vaccines to act better against infection as well as to boost people after their natural immunity declines.

Marjolein van Egmond, professor in immunology at Amsterdam UMC told NOS. ‘A recent study found that nine out of 10 people who are hospitalised with corona still have serious complaints a year later. This means that every hospital admission avoided is worthwhile.’

So far, 82.8% of people over 18 have had the ‘basic series’ of vaccinations, the government reports, and 63.9% have had a booster. In addition, 83.5% of under-18s have had at least one vaccination.

According to the latest figures from CBS statistics office, 44,214 people died from the coronavirus from March 2020 to the end of April this year in the Netherlands.