Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce assure the public today that the Chinese produced coronavirus vaccines are safe and will be effective, at a rate of between 60 and 90 percent. “This will be enough to provide a degree of collective immunity”, Filipce said, as he signed the contract for 200,000 Chinese vaccines.

The Macedonian Government failed utterly in its initial declaration that they will provide Western produced vaccines – not a single dose has been delivered to far, and the promised donations also failed to materialize. This forced Filipce, who in 2018 famously urged the voters to support the imposed name change because it would ensure access to top quality European vaccines, to now turn to China.

There is absolutely no reason to fear the safety of either of the vaccines. I believe that after March all the options will be much more available, here and across Europe, Filipce said, insisting that he will eventually get some of the Pfizer and other Western vaccines.