Covid-19, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Medicine

He reminded that the number of available vaccines would be small in number at first. In the case of Latvia, at best, 800,000 vaccines will be received next year. This would vaccinate just over 40% of the population.

At the same time, around 25% of the population in developed countries could have been vaccinated by the end of next year. "And that's not enough for us to achieve so-called crowd immunity. So we have to consider the fact that we will have to live with the virus for a longer period of time and continue to follow various safety measures," Mitenbergs said.

The WHO representative thinks that various restrictions will remain in force not only until the middle of summer, as expressed by the Prime Minister of Latvia Krisjanis Karins (New Unity), but also after the summer.

Asked how long it might take for this crowd immunity to become effective, he said it was not entirely clear at the moment. The specialist explained that it is currently unclear what percentage of the population should be vaccinated to achieve this crowd immunity - 60% to 70% is the assessment.