Putin Orders Mass Covid Vaccinations To Begin Next Week In Russia

Just hours after the UK approved the rushed Pfizer vaccine for use in the UK as soon as next week (it remains unclear just who will volunteer first), President Vladimir Putin ordered the start of mass-scale vaccination against coronavirus in Russia by the end of next week with medics and teachers first to get the shot.

In a teleconference on Wednesday, Putin said that Russia’s pharma industry is ready for a large-scale vaccination as the amount of doses of the pioneering anti-Covid “Sputnik V” vaccine already produced will reach two million in the coming days.

The vaccination against Covid-19 will be voluntary, and Russian citizens will be getting the shots free of charge.

“I’d ask you to organize the work in a way that would allow the start of large-scale vaccination by the end of next week,” the president told Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova.

The deputy PM said that she would report back when the government is ready to fulfil that task, but the ever laconic Putin responded by saying that he didn’t want a report, but an actual start of the vaccination.