Benighted Vaccine Ignorance : Thinning of the Eastern European Population

"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."

"I'm really scared and I'm pleading with doctors to help me correct my mistake [buying a fake vaccination certificate for his travel documents hauling cargo to European points]."

"You can't heat this illness. You can buy a counterfeit certificate, but you can't buy antibodies."

"Ukrainians are slowly starting to realize there is no alternative to vaccination."

Andriy Melnik, truck driver, Kyiv, Ukraine

"We're seeing low vaccine uptake in a whole swath of countries across that part of the region [Eastern Europe]."

"Historical issues around vaccines come to play. In some countries, the whole vaccine issue is politicized."

Catherine Smallwood, Europe COVID-19 incident manager, World Health Organization

"We are on the verge of catastrophe, pushed by aggressive opponents of vaccination and the lack of funds."

"Regrettably, five workers in my ward have quit over the past week."

Dr.Serhiy Shvets, head, surgical ward, Biliaivka Hospital, Ukraine

"I'm weeping in despair when I see that 99 percent of patients in serious condition with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and those people could have protected themselves."

"We are left struggling to save them without sufficient drugs and resources."

"Fake stories have spread widely, making people believe in microchips and genetic mutations."

:Some Orthodox priests have openly and aggressively urged people not to get vaccinated, and social networks have been filled with the most absurd rumours."

"Ukrainians have learned to distrust any authorities' initiatives, and vaccination isn't an exclusion."

Dr.Olha Kobevko infectious disease specialist, Chernivtsi Hospital, Ukraine 

A medic tends to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Pirogov hospital in Sofia, Bulgaria, October 15, 2021. Photo: October 15, 2021. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

 

On the African continent, populations vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID in every country have little option over whether or not to be inoculated against the novel coronavirus. They haven't the opportunity, since vaccines of any type and origin are scarce, and where vaccines are available they're short-dated and there is a serious lack of syringes. The WHO  calls this lack of equity. It is the wealthy countries of the world that are swimming in vaccines.

And there anti-vaxxers and vaccine-hesitant people in significant numbers represent the only deterrence to having the majority of any population inoculated against COVID. The promises made by advanced countries in the West with ample access to medical equipment and vaccine doses to provide the WHO vaccine-sharing program Covax with doses for the less advanced countries of the world are not meeting their obligations. In Europe there is no shortage of vaccines. The EU is acknowledged as having a high rate of vaccine coverage altogether.

And then, there is Eastern Europe, a dismal failure in vaccine uptake by its populations. Unsurprisingly, as a result of resistance to vaccines, the countries of Eastern Europe are facing a catastrophic rise of     COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Exceptions to the widespread trend of vaccine rejection are the Baltic nations, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. Public distrust is driving a low uptake of vaccines in other Eastern European countries, however.

 

Medical workers carry a patient suspected of having coronavirus on a stretcher at a hospital in Kommunarka, outside Moscow, Russia, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021    AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

 

There were 1,159 recorded COVID-related deaths in Russia in 24 hours, last week, the largest daily death count since the beginning of the pandemic. Roughly a third of the country's 146 million population has been fully vaccinated. In response, the Kremlin ordered a nonworking period to last to November 7. In Hungary private companies can require their employees to be vaccinated if they want to retain their employment, and government employees are required to be be vaccinated. 

Poland reported its highest number of daily infections at over 8,000 last Thursday. A mere 15 percent of the adult population in Ukraine is fully vaccinated, representing the second-lowest rate in Europe, following Armenia's 7 percent. Teachers, government employees and other workers are required to be fully vaccinated by November 8 in Ukraine to avoid suspension in pay. People may not board planes, trains or long-distance buses without proof of vaccination or a negative test.

A black market in counterfeit documents has emerged with fake vaccination certificates selling for $100 to $300. Police have opened 800 criminal cases into workers at 15 hospitals in Ukraine being involved in counterfeit certificates, with 100 mobile units deployed to track down users, according to the Interior Minister. Last week, a former lawmaker was among those arrested. In the western city of Chernivtsi, ten to 23 patients die daily of COVID, with those aged in their 30s and 40s impacted.

Believing the rumours that Western vaccines contain microchips to control people, Lidia Buiko, 72, chose the Chinese Sinovac vaccine: "Priests have urged us to think twice about getting immunized -- it would be impossible to get rid of the chip", she explained, waiting for her injection in a Kyiv clinic. It is estimated that roughly half of Ukrainian medical workers express vaccine reluctance. "The risks of misinformation to vaccination have never been  higher; nor have the stakes", commented     UNICEF representative in Ukraine Murat Sahin.

About 35 percent of vaccine-eligible adults in Romania are fully immunized where tighter restrictions are in effect requiring vaccination certificates for attending a gym, the movies or shopping malls. With a 10 p.m. curfew, shops close at 9 p.m., bars and nightclubs shuttered for 30 days, and masks are mandatory in public. 

 

Bulgaria has a quarter of its adult population fully vaccinated and reports record numbers of infections and deaths. Official data identify Bulgaria with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the 27-nation European Union, with 94 percent of deaths representing the unvaccinated.Authorities in Georgia launched a lottery of cash prizes to entice the population to be vaccinated, where 33 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

"[So many are] afraid of the vaccines because of the immense [amount of] fake information that has flooded social media and TV."

"Every day we see people arriving with shortness of breath and most of them are feeling sorry for not being vaccinated."

Dr.Dragos Zaharia, Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology, Bucharest

"[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."

Dr.Bidzina Kulumbegov, Georgia

A healthcare worker is waiting for patients at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at The Military Medical Academy in Sofia.

World Health Organization Unresponsive to Queries on COVID Recommendations and Timelines

"We haven't any alternative pitched to us [from the World Health Organization] at all. There could be perhaps an alternative pitch, which we would consider."
We asked for him [Canadian Dr.Bruce Aylward, WHO senior advisor] just to show up for an hour knowing that his time is valuable, but just one hour knowing that we would work around his time zone."
Canadian Member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux

"WHO has stated its strong commitment to a timely review of the global response in a transparent, independent and comprehensive manner."
"We are in the initial phase of the most complex and time-sensitive public health response in the history of the organization and our single-minded focus is thus on working with countries in the fight against the [global SARS-CoV-2] pandemic."
Canadian House of Commons Committee letter to WHO 

"To me this is not about politics. I am not there [on the committee] to delve into the politics of the WHO. I am purely interested in their information and the way they responded to the COVID-19 crisis."
"I don't understand the difference. If he is prepared to come forward and on the record answer questions, why wouldn't he want to do that with our committee."
Member of Parliament Don Davies

Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organisation (WHO) attends a news conference of the WHO-China Joint Mission about its investigation of the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, China, Feb. 24, 2020. Thomas Peter/Reuters

The World Health Organization has been criticized for giving the impression by its actions and statements clearly in favour of the Chinese response to the novel coronavirus, that its behaviour toward the Chinese Communist Party leadership is simply too deferential when its mandate is meant to be strictly objectively scientific in orientation, ensuring its guidance and advice to the world's nations is without bias, based strictly on medical science and factual evidence.

Not only has its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, come under suspicion for the perceived unctuousness he displays toward China's Xi Jinping but that suspicion has now extended toward the former assistant director general of the World Health Organization who led an expert group examining the coronavirus' emergence in China. Dr.Aylward, in an interview with a television station out of Hong Kong where the issue of Taiwan was raised, terminated the interview rather than respond.

And because the WHO through Dr.Tedros initially praised the Chinese response and parroted its findings on human-to-human transmission, and played down the impending seriousness of the growing infection and death rate just as China did, leading to the international community being lulled into a state of complacency when a state of immediate alert should have been mandated, many countries' authorities have questions they would like answers to from the WHO.

Resident doctor Kelvin Lou puts a CVC line into a patient in a COVID suspect room in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul's hospital in downtown Vancouver, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Jonathan Hayward)

To that end, the Canadian House of Commons committee looking into the issue had twice invited Dr. Aylward to come before them to respond to a number of queries relating to the novel coronavirus. To each of those invitations, Dr.Aylward responded in the negative. Had he recommended the presence of a senor aid to represent him, who would answer those questions, the committee would have accepted that as a reasonable alternative, but no such offer was forthcoming.

The UN agency's legal counsel responded to the committee by letter following the first invitation when counsel Derek Walton advised the agency is prepared for its decisions to undergo a full review, but not at the present. To which the head of the parliamentary committee, MP Jeneroux pointed out that Dr.Aylward has given time for media interviews, and as such it appears reasonable for him to spare time for an appearance before the committee representing his own government as a citizen of Canada.

That, since the Canadian response to the crisis of this global pandemic that has impacted so heavily around the world as an infectious disease afflicting over a million people worldwide with steadily growing numbers, while 244,000 people have died so far from its complications, the issues are of monumental importance. All the more so that the crisis and its response, driven by recommendations from the WHO, makes it incumbent on that body to be responsible for itself to the very audience so dependent on its guidance.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer,  Blair Gable / Reuters

The World Health Organization had been unequivocal, recommending against travel restrictions and border closings initially, with a side note that it would be 'racist' to close borders to China. They also advised against the use of protective masks by the public. Recommendations which Canada's chief public health officer, Dr.Theresa Tam, was guided by as she agreed with the WHO's recommendations before eventually changing her opinion over those issues.

Provided by: Public Health Agency of Canada