DISINFO: Fiasco and catastrophe with vaccination brought huge reputation losses to the EU
SUMMARY
Joseph Borrell blamed Russia for COVID-19 disinformation campaign and for painting its vaccines as superior to the EU's. This is nothing more than an attempt to portray own huge problems as provocations of external enemies. Whereas in Russia most people returned to normal life and COVID-19 related restrictions are gradually put down, the EU is facing a new round of lockdown measures and mass protests against them. Solidarity among the EU counties is increasingly crumbling. Eastern European EU member states such as Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia are turning to Russia to get Sputnik V. Poland, which is in a grave situation too but considers asking Russia for assistance unthinkable, started vaccine negotiations with China.
The current situation has proven one again - as it already was known a year ago - that the EU is helpless and incapable of dealing with such emergency situations as COVID-19. The EU’s countermeasures have been a fiasco, and the current situation with vaccination of the population is a catastrophe.
RESPONSE
This publication is part of a disinformation narrative asserting that Russia fights the pandemic more effectively than Western democracies, boosting the credibility of a Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine and undermining that of Western vaccines. Read more about Western vaccine vilification campaign in pro-Kremlin media in our past story "Big lies, little lies and vaccine vilifications."
The publication's claim that the current situation with vaccination in the EU is a 'catastrophe' whereas in Russia it is allegedly much better, is simply not true. Available data suggests that many EU countries either keep up with Russia in vaccination rates or outpace it. According to available data in Russia 4,6 cumulative COVID-19 vaccination doses were administered per 100 people as of March 2021. These are the corresponding rates in the four Visegrad countries which are explicitly mentioned in the publication: Czechia - 8,1, Hungary - 14,1, Poland - 10,6, Slovakia - 10,0.
Read earlier disinformation cases claiming that Western attacks on the Russian coronavirus vaccine are a corporate cold war against humanity, that Russian progress in COVID-19 vaccine has become for the West an outrageous challenge, and that the West lost another round in the fight against the pandemic.