Kumanovo Mayor Maksim Dimitrievski urged the Government to use all its resources to procure vaccines. Dimitrievski is from the ruling SDSM party but frequently clashed with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, both on his appeasing Bulgaria policy, and over mishandling the coronavirus epidemic.

We have some 100 medical professionals in Kumanovo who have been vaccinated. Some citizens who have dual passports travel to Serbia to take vaccinations. I appeal that the vaccines are found and that we begin collective immunization, Dimitrievski said.

The Government is facing a major scandal in the failed procurement of Chinese vaccines, after it was revealed that Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce tried using a shell company from American Samoa in his negotiations with Sinopharm, prompting the Chinese manufacturer to withdraw from the deal. With high demand for Pfizer vaccines, issues with the safety of Astra Zeneca and limited production capacity in Russia, Macedonia faces the prospects of going through the current major wave of the epidemic with one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe.