The ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian government has never manifested itself as dangerously as during the COVID‑19 vaccination campaign.
It’s an exercise in masochism to look at the vaccination statistics from developed countries and compare them to Ukraine’s. As the U.S. upped its pace to administering over 3 million doses per day, Ukraine administered 334,000 doses in six weeks.
The U. S. population is nearly eight times bigger than Ukraine’s, but its pace of vaccination is more than 200 faster than Ukraine’s. The U. K. is another frontrunner in terms of vaccination.
Scientists say the country will achieve herd immunity within days. And of course there is Israel, which has vaccinated more than half of its population and is returning to the pre-COVID way of life.
How does seeing that make Ukrainians feel? Neglected. Underprivileged. Frustrated.
Most of the time we in Ukraine can pretend that we live a life similar to people in the West. We watch the same movies and TV shows, eat the same food and wear the same clothes. But at times like these, we get an uncomfortable wake-up call. No, we don’t enjoy the same opportunities as people in richer countries, we are not equal.
We are left to jealously watch as the developed world gets the vaccines. Soon, we will be watching it get back to normal life, repopulate cafes and go to soccer games.
It would be easy to attribute this disparity just to the fact that Ukraine is poor. If that were true, it would have been easier to stomach. But unfortunately, it’s not just about the money.
Another factor is the disorganized mess that the government has made of the vaccination drive.
In early April, President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered to “create a national vaccination plan.” There is just one little issue. The vaccination campaign was already well into its sixth week by then.
It was clear from the beginning that the campaign is problematic. People were turning down the vaccine en masse, influenced by disinformation about its quality. That was unsurprising. The anti-vaccine attitudes were clear long before Ukraine started inoculating citizens in February.
The government had almost a year to put together a contingency plan: Decide on how to unroll the vaccination quickly, combat disinformation, and prepare a database of everyone willing to get vaccinated. Nothing was done in advance. If officials responsible for vaccination were managers in the private sector, they would have been fired for being shortsighted and incompetent. But in the public sector, they suffer no consequences — instead, they are left in charge of vaccination, a matter of life and death.
And what is left for regular Ukrainians to do? Some get into a habit of hanging out outside vaccination centers in the afternoons, waiting for a spare dose that would have been thrown away.
Long used to the ineffectiveness of their government, Ukrainians are once again taking their fate into their own hands.
But it’s no way to conduct mass vaccination. If Ukraine wants to return to normal life any time soon, the government has to get its act together for once.
