A man waits outside a mobile Covid-19 vaccination centre outside Bolton Town Hall, England, where case numbers of the Delta variant have been relatively high. (source: TASR/AP)
With the first confirmed case of the Delta variant in Slovakia, the issue of the low vaccination uptake in Slovakia is becoming ever more pressing.
Experience from the UK suggests that only the fully vaccinated are protected against the virus, in most cases meaning both doses of the vaccine are required. In Slovakia, 1.4 million people have completed their Covid vaccination as of June 24, while another half a million are awaiting their second jab.
On June 26 Slovakia will mark half a year since the vaccination roll-out and with interest in the vaccines on the decline, the state is pondering ways to motivate people who have not signed up for a vaccination yet.
“We need to prevent the virus from spreading to the most vulnerable groups, not like last year,“ Martin Šuster, a researcher with the National Bank of Slovakia, told The Slovak Spectator.
Experts agree that the current vaccination rate is not going to save Slovakia from the spread of the third wave of the epidemic, expected to arrive in the autumn or, according to some experts, even during the summer. They view the vaccination rate among older age groups as particularly worrying. The priority should now be to slow down the spread of the Delta variant and use the time gained through mitigation measures to increase the vaccine uptake among at-risk groups.
