Latvian Covid zealots are basing their vaccination support propaganda on lies and primitive manipulation. This conclusion follows from the data on people who have completed vaccination published last week by the Central Statistical Bureau and submitted by the National Health Service.
To avoid misunderstandings, I would like to emphasize that I am not against vaccination. However, public support campaigns for vaccination are currently taking forms that severely compromise medicine and vaccination as such. For example, Latvians who are skeptical about vaccination are told that vaccine skeptics (also called anti-vaxxers) are backwards and uneducated people, and according to the words of some Covid zealots on social networks - basically mentally impaired.
The truth is quite the opposite. According to the data published by the Central Statistical Bureau and submitted by the National Health Service, there is a reason to express even the opposite statement.
The higher the proportion of people with mental impairments in an area, the higher the proportion of vaccinated people in that area.
This is evidenced by the data of the National Health Service at the level of populated areas. Populated areas in Latvia with a vaccinated share of over 80% in September this year were: Jeri (87.4%), social care center Valka (84.8%), Smiltaiņi (84.0%), Atpūtas (83.1%), Iļģi (81.7%), Kraujas (80.5%) and Aizvīķi (80.2%).
What about the concentration of people with mental impairments in these settlements?
Jeri is home to the State social care center Rūja, which provides long-term care services for adults with mental impairments. Atpūtas in Remtes parish has a social care center Atpūtas. The state social care center Zemgale is located in Smiltaiņi village. In Iļģi village there is the Iļģi branch of the State social care center Kurzeme - a social care nursing home for persons with mental health impairments. Kraujas in Naujenes parish has a social support and care center Avots. Aizvīķi in Gramzdas parish has the Aizvīķi branch of the state social care center Kurzeme, which implements long-term social care and social rehabilitation for persons with mental disorders, etc.
Those who want to do propaganda can highlight this fact and state that, for example, it is imbeciles who are the most vaccinated against Covid. Only that would be untrue. It will be just as fake as the fairy tales of the Covid zealots and propagandists that the ones who refuse to get vaccinated against Covid are imbeciles.
The truth is that every effort has been made in Latvian social care centers to protect the most vulnerable groups from getting severely sick.
In addition, the residents of nursing homes had much greater opportunities to receive vaccination than those who live in rural homesteads, especially in Latgale.
The data published by the CSB also refutes the lie that it is precisely Latvians who strongly support vaccination, while Latvian Russians categorically reject it.
Such a statement must be considered untrue, fake news. Let's simply compare the administrative units according to the proportion of Latvians, Russians and Covid vaccinated people (population data at the beginning of 2021, data on the proportion of vaccinated on September 1, 2021).
Ten municipalities and cities (administrative division at the beginning of this year) with the smallest share of Latvians in 2021 were Jūrmala, Viļāni municipality, Salaspils municipality, Rēzekne, Rīga, Krāslava municipality, Olaine municipality, Daugavpils municipality, Zilupe municipality and Daugavpils.
Ten municipalities and cities (administrative division at the beginning of this year) with the largest proportion of Russians in 2021 were Salaspils municipality, Rēzekne municipality, Rīga, Olaine municipality, Ludza municipality, Daugavpils municipality, Rēzekne, Viļāni municipality, Daugavpils and Zilupe municipality.
Ten municipalities and cities (administrative division at the beginning of this year) with the lowest proportion of the population fully vaccinated against Covid-19 on September 1, 2021, were Līvāni municipality, Daugavpils municipality, Vārkava municipality, Ludza municipality, Viļāni municipality, Dagda municipality, Zilupe municipality, Rēzekne municipality, Cibla municipality and Riebiņi municipality.
As can be seen, out of ten municipalities with the proportion of the least vaccinated persons, five municipalities are not among the ten counties and cities with the smallest proportion of Latvians or the largest proportion of Russians. The lowest proportion of vaccinated persons was in Cibla and Riebiņi municipalities, but these municipalities are not among the ten municipalities with the lowest proportion of Latvians or the largest proportion of Russians.
Most likely, this means that the people of Latgale in most cases do not get vaccinated, not because they are imbeciles or have been swayed by Kremlin's propaganda, but because it is not easy there to get to the jab for people without their own transport.
The uneven distribution of vaccination results shown in the figure most likely indicates that the Ministry of Health, together with the closed Vaccination Bureau, has practiced total discrimination against the rural population. The current spatial data of vaccination results indicate the incompetence or even criminal level of irresponsibility by the vaccination organizers in ignoring the peculiarities of the population of rural areas of Latvia during the vaccination process.
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