Level of public vaccination against Covid-19 now depends on residents' willingness to vaccinate - minister

RIGA - Mass vaccination against Covid-19 in Latvia has begun, and the level of public vaccination will now depend purely on the will of the population to get vaccinated, Minister of Health Daniels Pavluts (For Development) told Latvian Radio this morning.

The Minister emphasized that the provision of vaccines against Covid-19 and the technical side of vaccination in Latvia have finally been straightened out. Vaccination these past holidays compared to other holidays were more successful, and the politician hopes that a new record number of vaccinated persons will be achieved this week.

Pavluts admitted that in general, in terms of the level of vaccination, Latvia lags behind the rest of Europe by a month or more, but he hopes that the situation could even out in June or July.

From the politician's point of view, the main task now is to encourage people to get vaccinated. This will be done both through explanatory work and by deciding on the benefits for the vaccinated population.

Speaking about Latgale, where there is less activity of the population to vaccinate, the politician admitted that the cause of the problems could be a separate information space for some residents and poorer access to health care services.

Pavluts noted that the Latvian authorities are already thinking about revaccination of the population against Covid-19, but there are still two big uncertainties in this area - how long the protection provided by existing vaccines against Covid-19 will last and how the spread of the virus will change.