Despite the quickly spiking number of deaths and infections from the coronavirus epidemic, Zoran Zaev today insisted that the census will go ahead as planned, in September.

The census was already postponed once, because of the major Third Wave of the epidemic in March and April. Zaev insisted that the census must now go ahead because VMRO-DPMNE insisted on the September date – VMRO threatened a boycott of the April census because of the huge infection rates, and said that it should take place in September – if the epidemic is under control by then.

The census was already determined, after the request of a serious participant in our society, the biggest opposition party VMRO-DPMNE. We showed the virtue of tolerance to accept to postpone the census for September 5th, Zaev said.

Meanwhile, the State Statistics Bureau, which is supposed to conduct the census, informed that it lacks most of the necessary census takers, and that some of those who registered for the post have not been vaccinated.