As we know, the Armenian government is working wonderfully. Everything is going well. And even if something is going poorly, that can be explained by the fact that the country was robbed during Robert’s and Serzh’s administrations. I believe that the ‘rules’ of this country for the next 20 years need to be grateful to the second and third presidents of Armenia for this universal ‘excuse’ for incompetence.
In particular, the former authorities placed the burden of the fight against the coronavirus on this government, and that is why the fight is not very successful. And the most effective way to fight against the coronavirus now is to vaccinate the population, not encourage people to wear masks. In this case, the government, to put it mildly, does not have anything to be proud of.
Around three months ago, we received a present from Russia of several thousands of doses of the Sputnik V vaccine. This is the same vaccine that we received in ‘symbolic amounts’ of 15,000, according to the Prime Minister. Along with that, we purchased 24,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine within the framework of the Covax Facility initiative (in other words, with a huge discount). Lately, as far as I understood, the vaccine has not been distributed among polyclinics. Only a few people have received Sputnik V; thankfully, doctors were among the first. In any case, it is not possible to change the situation in Armenia, which has a population of 3 million, with so few vaccines (enough for less than 2 percent of the population). According to Pashinyan, we need 1 million doses.
For comparison, more than 18 million people have been vaccinated in Great Britain, which has a population of 68.5 million, and the situation in Israel is even better: 4.6 million people of 8.7 million have been vaccinated, so, more than half. When I recently asked an employee at the Ministry of Health if we will at least be able to vaccinate 10 percent of the Armenian population in the next two months before the campaigns begin, the official honestly replied that this would be impossible.
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It’s clear that the vaccines approved by the World Health Organization are not being produced in adequate amounts, and it is impossible for the vaccines to be enough for 8 billion people. On the other hand, there is competition among the manufacturers, and, in particular, Russia and Britain are trying to discredit the vaccines manufactured in ‘rival’ countries- AstraZeneca and Sputnik V, respectively. According to some publications, the Russian side is jealous that we purchased a vaccine from a ‘rival manufacturer.’ But we should not be interested in those nuances. The Armenian government must raise the necessary funds and obtain the necessary amounts of the vaccine. After that happens, Pashinyan will have the right to mention the successful fight against the coronavirus in his 100 Facts About New Armenia.
Aram Abrahamyan
