Zoran Zaev said today that he will prioritize the small batch of Astra Zeneca vaccines Macedonia expects to receive on Sunday for the teams being prepared for his obsession to hold a census. Zaev insists that the census, which he agreed with his Albanian coalition partners, must begin next week even as the publis is afraid to allow teams of census workers in their homes. VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski, who is due to meet with Zaev on Monday and discuss this latest crisis, yesterday said that he will not allow the census workers in his home unless they prove they have taken the vaccine.
It was confirmed to us through the Covax mechanism that we will make the first step in mass vaccination on Sunday. We will receive 24,000 vaccines. It only takes one dose for them, so we will vaccinate 24,000 citizens. And these days we will have other, additional vaccines, but I don’t want to speak too soon. Besides the healthcare workers, the elderly and the chronically ill we will, of course, have to vaccinate the census takers, and the priority groups also include police officers and the military, Zaev said.
The Astra Zeneca vaccines which should arrive on Sunday, unless there are new delays in the never-ending saga of Zaev’s vaccine procurement, require two doses, not one, as Zaev today claimed.
So far, Macedonia used only 11,000 doses – 8,000 Pfizer vaccines donated by Serbia and 3,000 Sputnik V vaccines from Russia. All were used for healthcare workers, and no citizens from other critical groups have received vaccines so far. This is prompting Macedonian citizens to turn to Serbia, which is admitting non-citizens for vaccination, in large numbers.
Discussing the crisis, Zaev even cracked a joke today, insisting that his incompetence is actually good news, by saying that the delay in Macedonia meant that other countries tested the vaccines before us and found that they are actually safe.
I expect that the vaccines will be massively accepted in Macedonia. We have an advantage, so to speak, in being late with the vaccinations. EU member states started taking it before us, we could see their advantages and weaknesses, and we can conclude that the vaccines are safe and we should all use them, Zaev said.
Zaev’s shocking comment is similar to what his deputy Radmila Sekerinska said recently.
Macedonia lost over 3,500 people in the epidemic so far, and the infection and death rate is especially high in the past month, as the Third Wave of the illness hit the country. Zaev and Sekerinska were not asked about the number of lives that could have been saved if the Government was more competent in finding vaccines sooner.
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