The region’s high degree of vaccine skepticism and surging death rates do not reflect the lingering effects of decades of communist rule, but rather the decades-long social consequences of its collapse. Many countries in the region have not yet reversed the profound erosion of public trust that began after 1989.
SOFIA/PHILADELPHIA – In recent weeks, as Europe has again become the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths has highlighted the continued vaccine hesitancy of one group of Europeans in particular: those in the formerly communist East. While 75.6% of European Union citizens are fully vaccinated, the share in Bulgaria is 26.2% and 39.6% in Romania. In countries outside the EU, the numbers are even bleaker. Only 20.2% of Ukraine’s population, and 36.3% of Russia’s, is fully vaccinated.
SOFIA/PHILADELPHIA – In recent weeks, as Europe has again become the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths has highlighted the continued vaccine hesitancy of one group of Europeans in particular: those in the formerly communist East. While 75.6% of European Union citizens are fully vaccinated, the share in Bulgaria is 26.2% and 39.6% in Romania. In countries outside the EU, the numbers are even bleaker. Only 20.2% of Ukraine’s population, and 36.3% of Russia’s, is fully vaccinated.