Why won't Eastern Europeans get vaccinated? 

The region’s high degree of vaccine scepticism and death rates do not reflect lingering effects of decades of communist rule, but rather the social consequences of its collapse

A demonstrator holds an anti-vaccine sign during a protest against Covid-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates in Kyiv, Ukraine, last week. Picture: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

In recent weeks, as Europe has again become the global epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, the surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalisations, and deaths has highlighted the continued vaccine hesitancy of one group of Europeans in particular: those in the formerly communist East. 

While 75.6% of EU citizens are fully vaccinated, the share in Bulgaria is 26.2% and 39.6% in Romania. In countries outside the EU, the numbers are even bleaker. Only 20.2% of Ukraine’s population, and 36.3% of Russia’s, is fully vaccinated.