The Democratic Coalition (DK) on Sunday accused the government of “politicising the issue of the coronavirus vaccine and subjecting it to its anti-European Union campaign.” Meanwhile, Fidesz says that the left is misleading public in the issue of vaccination.
Gergely Arató, DK’s deputy group leader, insisted at an online press conference that the government had “on purpose” refrained from contracting the Moderna vaccines assigned for Hungary by the EU,
“because Pfizer-BioNTech offered better prices and delivery conditions”.
“It is outrageously irresponsible that the government cited high prices when failing to order enough safe vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency, and then proceeded to buy the Chinese vaccine at double the price,” Arató said.
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“It is now clear that the Hungarian government’s priority is to [find excuses to] slam Brussels rather than caring for the health of Hungarians,” Arató said.
Meanwhile, the state secretary in charge of international communications and relations on Sunday accused Hungary’s left wing, “led by Ferenc Gyurcsány’s party” DK, of consciously misleading the public.
“Ever since the start of the epidemic, they have been continually lying and spreading fake news,”
Zoltán Kovács told public media.
Kovács said the government had tapped all available vaccines through the European Union acquisition system for the first half of this year. He said that approximately 20 million doses of vaccine had been ordered.
“The problem is that not enough vaccine arrives from Brussels and they are unable to supply the volume ordered,” he said. “It is like that in the whole of the European Union, not only in Hungary,” he added. Kovács said
this was the reason why Hungary had purchased vaccine from Russia and China, a total of seven million doses.
“We are asking the left wing once again that if they do not help protection efforts against the epidemic, they should at least not hinder them by spreading fake news,” said Kovács .
The opposition is not misleading the public. The extract below was taken from Euronews yesterday, 28 February. The final paragraph is of particular concern I think.
Faced with a lack of information on the Sinopharm vaccine, the Hungarian Medical Association (MOK) said at the beginning of February that it was “unable, in all conscience, to recommend the use of this product to its members”.
But the country’s medical authorities ignored its fears and gave their final approval last week.
Sinopharm has not yet released data on the results of the vaccine’s Stage 3 trials.