This week Macedonia surpassed 6,000 deaths from Covid-19 for the entire course of the pandemic, and the number of active cases reached 15,000 for the first time since the April wave. The country has one of the worst death rates in the world, and now ranks fourth in the world in deaths per capita. The actual situation is likely even worse, given that census data in Macedonia are unreliable and put the total population at greatly inflated 2.1 million.

About 10 percent of the coronavirus deaths and 13 percent of all hospitalizations were of citizens who are fully vaccinated. This has prompted the Healthcare Ministry to again urge citizens to get vaccinated, which seems to be the only protection against the virus, given the failure of the healthcare system to treat patients.