Lagging in COVID-19 vaccinations, Brussels takes vaccination campaign to shops

BRUSSELS - Health authorities in Brussels began offering COVID-19 jabs in supermarkets and shopping centres on Monday to increase vaccination rates in the Belgian capital that have not kept up with Belgium's rapid inoculation roll-out.

Host to the European Union and NATO, Brussels has only given vaccinations to about 65% of its population, much lower than the surrounding Belgian regions, mainly because people did not respond to requests to go to vaccination centres. "We're really trying to bring, as much as possible, the vaccine to the people," Inge Neven, crisis manager responsible for the COVID-19 response in Brussels, told Reuters.