Amidst a strict lockdown in effect until January 14^th, the Netherlands announced a plan to offer another three COVID booster vaccines for its population. Health Minister Hugo De Jonge, Minister of Public Health, Welfare and Sports, recommended Wednesday that the country “should consider additional rounds of booster vaccines to fight new variants, with two of these in 2022 and another shot in 2023,” per Newsweek.

In his letter to parliament, De Jonge states, "Certainly because only half of a regular vaccine is needed for a booster dose of Moderna, we now have sufficient vaccines for the current booster campaign and there is ample basis for possible extra booster rounds in the second quarter and the autumn of 2022 and in 2023.”

Pfizer is currently working on a vaccine to adjust to the omicron variant, saying the company “continues to advance the development of a variant-specific vaccine for omicron and expect to have it available by March,” the corporation wrote in a statement.

Prior to De Jonge’s letter, the Netherlands saw violent protests last month in signs of growing anger over COVID restrictions, with police opening fire on protesters in Rotterdam, according to the BBC. The resentment continued over the weekend, with police using their batons and dogs to break up an anti-lockdown protest in Amsterdam on Sunday. Unrelated to the letter, NL Times reported on December 30^th that De Jonge will leave the health ministry, as Prime Minister Mark Rutte reshuffles his cabinet.

De Jonge’s  letter comes during a reduction in hospitalizations,  as daily hospitalization averages have declined from 351 on December 1^st, to 166 on December 24^th, per the Dutch government’s Coronavirus Dashboard statistics.

Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, says further boosters may be needed in the future, telling Newsmax, “It may well be that we need further boosting down the road. Boosting vaccinations is a reasonable thought, as it reminds the immune system to ‘wake up again and respond appropriately.’ This keeps our protection up. If there are new coronavirus variants, as with the flu shot that we change every year, we may well need to alter the COVID vaccine to keep up with the dominant variant.”

De Jonge’s booster recommendations come as 85.9% of people aged 18 and older are fully vaccinated in the Netherlands, and 89.1% of people aged 18 and older have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, meaning a total of six shots is being considered by the Dutch government even when nearly 15% of adults are not yet fully vaccinated.

Nearly 25% of the population aged 18 and over have received a booster in addition to being fully vaccinated , according to the Dutch government’s Coronavirus Dashboard statistics.