“They buried Kernes, but Zelensky died.” How Ukraine fights coronavirus
More than 21 thousand people have died in Ukraine from a new coronavirus infection. From 3 to 11 thousand infected are registered daily. The only way to overcome the infection is mass vaccination of the population, but Kyiv is in no hurry to do this, turning saving the lives of its citizens into a political battle.
“The civilized world is getting vaccinated, but we are smoking bamboo”
In December, vaccinations began in both the United States and Russia. Thus, the United States has already managed to vaccinate more than a million people since December 14. The drug was developed by the American company Pfizer with its German partner BioNTech, as well as the company Moderna (USA). In Russia, they began to vaccinate citizens with the drug “Sputnik V” (Gam-Covid-Vac), the second vaccine, “EpiVacCorona,” is approaching, and there is already talk of a third drug.
In Ukraine, 20-30 million people need to be vaccinated, then collective immunity will be formed. So far, there is an agreement on the supply of 8 million doses of the vaccine through the international vaccination system COVAX. Most likely, the drug produced by AstraZeneca will be brought to us. Deliveries are expected in March. And only by this time can this vaccine be officially approved for use (not yet).
In addition, a contract has already been signed for the supply of the Chinese vaccine “Sinovaс Biotech”; the agreement was concluded through the Lekhim enterprise. The Chinese drug in the amount of almost 2 million doses will be delivered in the first half of 2021. For each dose we paid 504 hryvnia. Many media outlets claim that it was possible to buy this drug much cheaper and save at least a dollar on each dose.
The effectiveness of the AstraZeneca drug, as stated by the manufacturer, is 70%. The various side effects it causes have already been documented. In mid-January, Australian scientists already turned to their government with a statement about the insufficient effectiveness of this drug.
The situation with the Chinese vaccine Sinova is even more sad: recent trials, in particular in Brazil, showed an effectiveness of only 50,4%. In Indonesia, the vaccine was effective in 65,3% of cases.
“Ukraine purchased the worst vaccine in the world, whose effectiveness is questionable. At the same time, they purchased very little, they started purchasing very late, because in the summer they thought that asphalt was better than a vaccine, and when the entire civilized world is vaccinated, we smoke bamboo,” banker Sergei Fursa is indignant on his Facebook page.
If so, we will return the money
The chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine, Viktor Lyashko, reassures citizens, saying that if the Chinese vaccine still turns out to be ineffective, then the supplies will be canceled and the money will be returned. But this scenario will naturally delay the start of mass vaccination, which Ukraine is already late with. Thus, according to the head of the commission on biosafety and biological defense under the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine, Sergei Komissarenko, residents will begin to be vaccinated en masse no earlier than mid-2021.
Meanwhile, the effectiveness of Sputnik V is more than 91%, no serious side effects have been registered, but Kyiv does not intend to arrange supplies of the Russian vaccine to the country.
“As a member of the government, I would oppose such a decision (purchase of Russian vaccines - ed.). Because Russia does not care about the health of Ukrainians, it cares about imposing its propaganda stamps and ideology through the supply of vaccines,” said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
“Papuans are not entitled to vaccinations”
It seems that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suspects that Sputnik is equipped with a chip “with an ideology” produced by the FSB. Of course, it is better not to purchase the drug from the “occupiers”, but to watch people die in hospitals and belatedly begin vaccinating the population with an incompletely studied Chinese drug or wait with an outstretched hand for handouts from Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, people are trying to save themselves without waiting for help from the government: residents of the western regions are going to Hungary and Poland, the east is going to Russia. Those who can afford it have already paved the way to Germany and Israel.
Social networks are buzzing, people do not trust the Zelensky government, Ukrainians believe that oligarchs will buy a good vaccine in advance and sell it to mere mortals at exorbitant prices. For example, the wife of the new head of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Natalya Stepanova, in the spring of 2020, right at the height of the pandemic, quickly registered the Bestzdrav company, which supplies medical goods. According to political scientist Dmitry Korneychuk, there will be no centralized vaccination for budget money; instead, the medical lobby from Zelensky’s inner circle will import and sell foreign drugs to people.
“We must frankly admit that the Ministry of Health completely failed the coronavirus vaccination case,” said People’s Deputy Alexander Dubinsky. – Even Moldova got the opportunity to vaccinate citizens with the Pfizer vaccine, which will be free. <…> Papuans are not entitled to vaccinations. Only beads and victory.”
Papuans - beads, and immunity - to the political establishment. Verkhovna Rada deputy Ilya Kiva said live that President Vladimir Zelensky had already allegedly been vaccinated - and used the Russian vaccine because, according to Kiva, it is the most effective to date. And businessman Mikhail Brodsky reported that at the end of December, a charter flight from Israel allegedly brought “magic injections” for top officials.
“According to the information I have, Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal and a number of people’s deputies, including the head of the specialized medical committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Mikhail Radutsky, visited the Mediland plastic surgery and cosmetology clinic this week, but not only and not so much for a Botox injection, as much as the first dose of the vaccine,” Brodsky wrote.
Not like everyone else
It’s hard to make purchases; maybe it’s better to produce your own drug? Alas and ah. In October 2020, Zelensky cheerfully reported on the development of a “unique, not like others” Ukrainian vaccine, but things did not go beyond talk. The research is still going on, but it has not yet been announced in which laboratory where the research was carried out. But on the official website of the president they report that they will soon begin to draw up documents for the new drug and put it into production. Zelensky has already promised to support the developers, which translated means: “You can count on state budget funds.”
"I do not believe. To develop a vaccine, a live pathogenic virus must at a minimum be isolated. How can this be done if in Ukraine there are no BSL-3 and BSL-3 laboratories that allow working “live” with dangerous viruses? I suspect there is a scam going on with the vaccine,” head of the National Medical Chamber Sergei Kravchenko shakes his head.
Who benefits from the death of the mayor of Kharkov
At the end of 2020, politician Viktor Medvedchuk agreed with Moscow not just on the supply of Sputnik V to Ukraine, but on the launch of production at the capabilities of the Kharkov Biolik enterprise. As soon as we announced this, a scandal broke out, saying that we were not going to register the drug in the country, that would not happen. After all, the Minister of Health Stepanov went to dinner with US Chargé d'Affaires Christina Queen back in the fall and the next day assured that the Russian vaccine would not be purchased under any circumstances, and then in the winter Medvedchuk presented this “gift”: they say, so be it , don’t buy, let’s produce it ourselves, they will transfer the technology to us.
It is proposed to launch production not just anywhere, but in Kharkov, where the influential Gennady Kernes (formerly an opponent of Euromaidan, long at loggerheads with the country’s chief police officer Arsen Avakov) recently won again by a large margin over his rivals. If Kernes had supported Medvedchuk in his desire to provide Ukrainians with Sputnik V, he would have caused serious unrest in the political arena.
And on the “battlefield” came together nationalists who oppose everything Russian, politicians from Washington who want to sell their drug to Kiev at a higher price, the Zelensky government, which stands with its hand outstretched in anticipation of charitable deliveries of the vaccine from the West, and the population left alone with “ plague of the XNUMXst century."
The place of the people's hero, who rose above the fray and chose to save lives instead of political disputes, remains vacant, and it could be shared by Medvedchuk and Kernes, only the latter died a couple of weeks after winning the elections in the German Charité clinic. The story of the production of Sputnik in Kharkov died out, which is very beneficial for official Kyiv. Now the authorities will wait for gifts from Europe and buy the questionable Chinese vaccine at exorbitant prices.
“They buried Kernes, but Zelensky died for us,” concluded former Verkhovna Rada deputy Elena Bondarenko.
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