His view changed after the friend caught COVID-19 and ended
up in an intensive care unit on a ventilator.
“It’s not a tall tale. I see that this disease kills, and
strong immunity wouldn’t be enough -- only a vaccine can offer protection,”
said Melnik, 42, as he waited in Kyiv to get his shot. “I’m really scared and
I’m pleading with doctors to help me correct my mistake.”
Ukraine is suffering through a surge in coronavirus
infections, along with other parts of Eastern Europe and Russia. While vaccines
are plentiful, there is a widespread reluctance to get them in many countries —
though notable exceptions include the Baltic nations, Poland, the Czech
Republic, Slovenia and Hungary.
The slow pace of vaccinations in Eastern Europe is rooted in
several factors, including public distrust and past experience with other
vaccines, said Catherine Smallwood, the World Health Organization’s Europe
COVID-19 incident manager.
“We’re seeing low vaccine uptake in a whole swath of
countries across that part of the region,” she told The Associated Press.
“Historical issues around vaccines come into play. In some countries, the whole
vaccine issue is politicized.”
Russia on Thursday recorded 1,159 deaths in 24 hours — its
largest daily toll since the pandemic began — with only about a third of the
country’s nearly 146 million people fully vaccinated. The Kremlin ordered a
national nonworking period starting this week and lasting until Nov. 7.
An official in Hungary announced Thursday that private
companies can require that employees get vaccinated to work, a measure that
could boost in the nation’s stagnant vaccination rate. Government employees,
including teachers, will also be required to vaccinate, the official said.
Poland on Thursday reported the highest number of daily new
infections since May at over 8,000.
In Ukraine, only 16% of the adult population is fully
vaccinated — the second-lowest share in Europe after Armenia’s rate of slightly
over 7%.
Authorities in Ukraine are requiring teachers, government
employees and other workers to get fully vaccinated by Nov. 8 or face a
suspension in pay. In addition, proof of vaccination or a negative test is now
needed to board planes, trains and long-distance buses.
This has created a booming black market in counterfeit
documents. Fake vaccination certificates sell for the equivalent of $100-$300.
There’s even a phony version of the government’s digital app, with bogus
certificates already installed, said Mykhailo Fedorov, minister for digital
transformation.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy chaired a
meeting on how to combat the counterfeits. Police suspect workers at 15
hospitals of being involved. They have opened 800 criminal cases into such fakes
and deployed 100 mobile units to track down users, said Interior Minister Denys
Monastyrsky. They even caught a former lawmaker with one last week.
Kyiv mayor Vitaly Klitschko on Thursday announced new
restrictions in the capital to stem the virus’ spread. Beginning Nov. 1,
restaurants, shopping centers and gyms will be closed and public transport
limited to those who can show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test.
Ukraine’s low vaccination rate has led to the rapid spread
of COVID-19, putting new stress on the country’s already overworked health care
system.
The hospital surgical ward in the town of Biliaivka, near
the Black Sea port of Odessa, is now treating only coronavirus patients, with
50 of its 52 beds filled. Drugs and oxygen are in short supply.
“We are on the verge of catastrophe, pushed by aggressive
opponents of vaccination and the lack of funds,” said Dr. Serhiy Shvets, the
head of the ward. “Regrettably, five workers in my ward have quit over the past
week.”
The situation looks similar at a 120-bed hospital in the
western city of Chernivtsi, where Dr. Olha Kobevko says she has 126 patients in
grave condition.
“I’m weeping in despair when I see that 99% of patients in
serious condition with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and those people could have
protected themselves,” the infectious disease specialist told AP. “We are left
struggling to save them without sufficient drugs and resources.”
The current surge seems especially lethal, Kobevko said,
with 10-23 patients dying daily at her hospital, compared with fewer than six
per day last spring. The number of COVID-19 patients in their 30s and 40s has
grown considerably, she added.
She blames widespread vaccine skepticism, influenced by
social media and religious beliefs.
“Fake stories have spread widely, making people believe in
microchips and genetic mutations,” Kobevko said. “Some Orthodox priests have
openly and aggressively urged people not to get vaccinated, and social networks
have been filled with the most absurd rumors. Ukrainians have learned to
distrust any authorities’ initiatives, and vaccination isn’t an exclusion.”
Lidia Buiko, 72, chose to get the Chinese Sinovac shot,
citing a falsehood that the Western vaccines contained microchips to control
the population.
“Priests have urged us to think twice about getting
immunized — it would be impossible to get rid of the chip,” she said as she
waited in Kyiv.
Vaccine hesitancy exists even among medical workers. Health
Minister Viktor Lyashko admitted that about half of Ukrainian medical workers
are still reluctant to get them.
Murat Sahin, UNICEF representative in Ukraine, said false
and misleading information about COVID-19 poses a growing threat.
“The risks of misinformation to vaccination have never been
higher — nor have the stakes,” he said.
Similar skepticism has been seen elsewhere in Eastern
Europe, fueled by online misinformation, religious beliefs, distrust of
government officials, and reliance on nontraditional treatments.
In Romania, where about 35% of adults are fully immunized,
tighter restrictions took effect this week requiring vaccination certificates
for many daily activities, such as going to the gym, the movies or shopping
malls. There’s a 10 p.m. curfew, shops close at 9 p.m., bars and nightclubs are
closed for 30 day, and masks are mandatory in public.
So many are “afraid of the vaccines because of the immense
(amount of) fake information that has flooded social media and TV,” said Dr.
Dragos Zaharia of Bucharest’s Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology.
“Every day, we see people arriving with shortness of breath
and most of them are feeling sorry for not being vaccinated,” he told AP.
Bulgaria, which has only a quarter of its adult population
fully vaccinated, also reported record infections and deaths this week.
According to official data, Bulgaria has had the highest COVID-19 mortality
rate in the 27-nation European Union for the past two weeks, and 94% of those
deaths were of unvaccinated people.
Only 33% of Georgia’s population has been fully vaccinated,
and authorities launched a lottery with cash prizes for those getting shots.
Still, Dr. Bidzina Kulumbegov bemoaned the slow pace of vaccinations.
The government’s information campaign “was not designed
according to the peculiarities of our country. The emphasis should have been
done, for instance, on the Georgian Orthodox Church, because we have many
instances when priests are saying that vaccination is a sin,” Kulumbegov said.
For Melnik, the Ukrainian truck driver, the fear of getting
COVID-19 outweighed all other concerns.
“You can’t cheat this illness,” he said. “You can buy a
counterfeit certificate, but you can’t buy antibodies. Ukrainians are slowly
starting to realize there is no alternative to vaccination.” -AP
Oleksandr Stashevskyi in Odesa, Ukraine, Jamey Keaten in
Geneva, Stephen McGrath in Bucharest, Romania, Veselin Toshkov in Sofia,
Bulgaria, Sophiko Megrelidze in Tbilisi, Georgia, Justin Spike in Budapest,
Hungary and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.
0 comments:
Post a Comment