Norway has changed its policy on the use of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to consider excluding the terminally ill, following reports of deaths in highly frail recipients after the inoculation was given, BioNTech said.

“Norwegian health authorities have now changed [their] recommendation in relation to vaccination of the terminally ill (Clinical Frailty Scale 8 or higher),” said BioNTech.

The Clinical Frailty Scale, a widely used system of classification in elderly care, defines degree 8 patients as approaching end of life and typically unable to “recover even from a minor illness”.