Hungary’s COVID-19 Vaccination Rate Highest in the EU

The ECDC’s Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker dashboard’s latest update has put Hungary on top of the list in terms of population share already inoculated by at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine. 

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has been running the dashboard since vaccination started in the EU. The latest update put Hungary on the top of the list with a first-dose vaccination rate of 21.6%, with 6.6% of whom already received the second dose as well.

Hungary took the first place from the now runner-up Malta, which has a vaccination rate of 21.5%, while Finland, Estonia and Austria make up the rest of the top 5 countries, with rates between 15.2-17.5%.

The three most unvaccinated countries are Bulgaria, Latvia and Liechtenstein, all having a current vaccination rate below 10%.

The unprecedented rate in which Hungary is able to inoculate its citizens is largely due to the fact that it opted to acquire Russian and Chinese vaccines along the ones pre-ordered through the common EU mechanism. 

Upon delivery of the last 450 thousand of Sinopharm doses, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán clarified, that Hungary does not plan to stay ahead of other EU member states just for the sake of it. ‘Of course, we’re not racing against other European countries, we’re racing against the virus‘ – said Orbán in his Facebook post.