All non-vaccinated people in Lithuania will have had coronavirus by spring – PM

VILNIUS – As the spread of the coronavirus shows no sign of slowing down, probably all non-vaccinated people in Lithuania will have had the virus by the upcoming spring, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte says.

"(…) Judging by the way the virus is now spreading, over this winter and a bit of the spring, it's very likely that the Delta virus, because of its characteristics, will reach those people who refuse to get vaccinated," Simonyte said in a interview with BNS.

According to the prime minister, the government no longer has the goal of seeking and encouraging people to get vaccinated by all means.

Simonyte says her every working day starts with an analysis of COVID-19 statistics for the past 24 hours, and the happiest days for her are when the death line shows zero.

"Since June when vaccines in fact became available to everyone, the deaths of non-vaccinated people now make 80 percent of all deaths," the prime minister said.

In he words, if all those people had been vaccinated, the number of deaths would have been several times lower.

"We could have had some 100, or 50, or probably 80. Nobody can guess that now, but these are now tragedies, and those tragedies happen every single day. And the worst thing that nobody wants to take responsibility for those tragedies," Simonyte said.

She also expressed her disappointment over the fact that people can be so affected by disinformation and lies.

5,456 people have died of the coronavirus in Lithuania so far, according to the latest figures from the country's statistics office. And the number includes 207 fully vaccinated people.

A total of 370,000 people have contracted the virus in Lithuania since the start of the epidemic, and there are still 27,400 active disease cases in the country right now.