Dumpis: it would take 'a miracle' to get more people vaccinated in Latvia

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It would take a miracle to achieve a higher proportion of vaccinated people in Latvia, since vaccines here are 'disliked', infectologist, professor Uga Dumpis said in an interview on Latvian Radio July 27.

Dumpis said he did not like the word 'compulsory' for vaccination. He said there "simply are things that an unvaccinated person cannot do for the sake of his or her safety". For example, unvaccinated teachers who come to teach a class with unvaccinated children would first threaten themselves, he said.

“In the medical field, it is particularly dramatic when an infected medic with mild symptoms or without symptoms infects a severely ill [patient] who is in the hospital,” said Dumpis.

According to the doctor, there could be new information on the availability of vaccines for children younger than 12 years in the autumn, but he stressed that vaccinating children is not currently the main objective. The aim is to vaccinate adults who currently come to hospitals with severe pneumonia and, although they are discharged later, are forced to live with the effects of the virus after they overcome the infection.

Speaking of the vaccination proportion in Latvia, Dumpis said - it would take a miracle to reach a higher number of vaccinated people, because it looks like 'vaccines are disliked' in Latvia.

“It is difficult to explain why we have this,” he said, adding that in Scandinavia too, people are very worried about the safety of vaccines, everything is carefully checked, but they still vaccinate. In Denmark, for example, the vaccination proportion in at-risk groups exceeds 90%. Latvia is closer to Bulgaria and Romania on this list.

The infectologist expressed concern that a large proportion of patients in the risk group have not been vaccinated and that in such a situation we are again threatened with hospital congestion. He said that, looking at the death statistics, people aged 70, 80 and over are losing their fight against the virus, when they could have been vaccinated in February already.

Dumpis also pointed out that the increase in morbidity in Latvia is inevitable, but stressed that there is no need to talk about new restrictions, rather encourage vaccination.

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