Croatia: Our plan failed, the consequences will be disastrous
Several Croatian officials, doctors and scientists have warned in recent days that interest in vaccination against COVID-19 in Croatia is declining.
Source: index.hr
Croatia, as they point out, is far from achieving collective immunity, and even from the government's modest goal of vaccinating at least 50 to 55 percent of the adult population by July 1.
According to the Index.hr portal, by June 25, only about 30 percent of the adult population in Croatia has been fully vaccinated, i.e. about 25 percent of the total population, while collective immunity requires 85 percent of the total population.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic until today, after the initial success in the first wave, Croatia ranked 17th with the highest mortality rate of COVID-19 with about 2.000 deaths per million inhabitants, according to the Index.hr.
The government and the Crisis Staff have shown that in all this time since the beginning of the pandemic, after all the mistakes - such as selectively allowing political rallies, hesitation in introducing measures before the end of 2020 and poorly organized vaccination application system - they have failed to devise smart campaigns to appeal to people incentives for vaccination, either through education and information or incentives and penalties.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Minister of Health Vili Beroš, epidemiologist Bernard Kaić and director of the Crisis Staff of the Dubrava Clinical Center Bruno Baršić also spoke about the problem of poor response to vaccination, warning citizens that the decline in the number of newly infected should not deceive them because the new strains of the virus are “lurking around the corner”.
At the government meeting, Plenković expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the number of those vaccinated with the first dose has increased by only one percent in the last seven days, while epidemiologist Kaić warned that the fourth wave will arrive in Croatia in the fall, and he will depend on the response to vaccination.
On the other hand, as all relevant scientists warn - vaccination is extremely important, as well as achieving collective immunity because it is an extremely contagious virus that mutates very quickly. Another problem with vaccination variability is that the spread of viruses and their free mutation favor the emergence of some variants more resistant to vaccines.
In Croatia, they also warn the citizens that if they do not start getting vaccinated, they are threatened with the spread of the virus, thus endangering the tourist season, on which the entire economy depends.
