Pavļuts mentioned Daugavpils hospital, where only 46% of the 1600 employees are vaccinated. “We have no right to threaten hospital patients that the employees have not been vaccinated and there is a risk of illness,” Pavļuts said.
He said that if hospital employees did not vaccinate, a solution would have to be found for how to proceed. The solution, however, is not to “succumb to unvaccinated [people's] blackmail”, the minister said.
The Ministry of Health has promised that schools will be the first to open after the “lockdown.” In other sectors, “normal” life will return only for vaccinated people. “Non-vaccinated people have to consider that their ability to meet their needs, with the exception of basic needs, will be limited and even more limited in the future,” Pavļuts said.
Currently around 100,000 people can be vaccinated in Latvia within a week. This means that all unvaccinated residents could be vaccinated in six to seven weeks. “We cannot anticipate people's readiness to vaccinate. But we have done everything to make vaccination an inevitable step,” Pavluts said.
