Covid-19: in the Balkans, denial and refusal of vaccines cause a massacre – archyde

What you see when you arrive at the emergency department of the Bucharest University Hospital is cold in the back. About 80 black plastic bags are piled up in the corridors; they contain the bodies of Covid-19 victims. The morgue fridges are full. For lack of beds available, the new arrivals are waiting on chairs in the halls of the hospital, placed on oxygen while waiting for a bed to become available.

In the courtyard, ambulances constantly bring new patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. They are not asking for a bed, but a chair, and an oxygen cylinder. About 95% of the 400 patients with Covid-19 are not vaccinated. “Refusing to be vaccinated endangers the lives of others, warns Catalin Carstoiu, the administrator of the hospital. You can build as many hospitals as you want, if people continue to refuse the vaccine, nothing will change. “

In Romania, the gravity of the situation is unprecedented since the start of the epidemic, with more than 19,000 new cases and 400 deaths per day for a population of 19.9 million inhabitants. Yet the vaccination rate is not taking off. With just 35% of adults receiving two doses, the country has the lowest rate in the European Union (EU) after Bulgaria, where less than 24% of adults are vaccinated. Bulgarian health authorities reported 214 deaths on October 18 (for 6.7 million inhabitants). This table can be found in all the countries of the Balkans, according to a geographical logic that is obvious on the maps of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control: the further east we move, the higher the rate of people vaccinated. decrease.

With their high average age, the poor general health of their population and their hospitals with limited means, these eastern European countries are however particularly exposed to the coronavirus and its variant Delta. “Our hospitals have reached their maximum capacity, mainly due to a lack of staff. One in seven people who are hospitalized in Bulgaria die from Covid ”, explains Maria Sharkova, lawyer in health law in Plovdiv, the second largest city in the country. “And yet, only 1,000 doses of vaccine are administered per day”, she despairs.

Vaccines that are widely available

In Romania, the 1,800 beds reserved for emergencies are already all occupied and some patients are now sent to Hungary. “Patients are scrambling to be the first to get oxygen. The situation is desperate ”, assures Victoria Arama, doctor of the Matei-Bals Institute, in Bucharest. This hospital specializing in infectious diseases was also affected by a fire in its unit dedicated to Covid-19 which killed twelve people in January. A real scourge in this country where three hospitals have been victims of fires in one year.

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