By: V4 Agency
“More than 980,000 people have already been vaccinated in Hungary, and another 400 thousand will receive the coronavirus jab by Wednesday, making the country the leader in Europe,” the Hungarian prime minister’s office chief has said. Gergely Gulyas called the Chinese Sinopharm jab – one of the vaccines used in the country – perhaps the most protective against the virus’s mutant variants.
The minister highlighted that, by the month of May, Hungary could vaccinate 3.5 million more people than countries relying solely on vaccines supplied by the European Union.
Unfortunately, even in the worst crisis situations, leftists maintain the foundational premise of “the worse, the better,” and from this baseline follows their anti-vaccine rhetoric, Gergely Gulyas remarked, referring to the Hungarian opposition.
“Regarding vaccines that have been tested and approved by the relevant Hungarian authorities, with which tens of millions of people around the world have been inoculated and are thus protected, why on earth shouldn’t we use them in Hungary?” he posed the rhetorical question.
The Hungarian politician called the Chinese vaccine one of the best, perhaps the best vaccine to provide the greatest protection against mutant strains of the virus. He added that any anti-vaccination position was against Hungary’s interests, hampering the country’s effective pandemic response, which would make it possible to restart the economy as soon as possible.
“This is not the first time that Hungary has played a pioneering role in the European Union,” in addition to vaccines, Mr Gulyas was referring to migration, noting that, “Hungary was the first to say that the process must be stopped.”
“In the case of vaccines, it was clear that good vaccines could be made both in the West and in the East,” he stressed, adding that they insisted that vaccines be, “tested by the Hungarian authorities and that only those that were approved and safe would be made available to the Hungarian public.”
EU Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said it was “fine” for EU member states to procure Sputnik V from Russia or Sinopharm from China.
According to a report by the Brussels news portal Politico, Thierry Breton called it a sensible move for any EU member state to procure vaccines from various sources. However, in his view, the Russian and Chinese vaccine purchases in each EU member state are “just a drop in the ocean, we need millions.”
In Hungary, where both the Chinese Sinopharm and the Russian Sputnik V vaccines are being used, more than 980,000 people have already been inoculated. This puts Hungary in second place in the EU after Malta in terms of inoculation percentage.
The table published by The New York Times on Saturday shows that in terms of vaccination rollout per 100 people, the Central European country is also performing well globally, as Hungary now ranks 12th in the world.