BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) – A Hungarian conductor received a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on stage during a free outdoor concert in Budapest on Wednesday as part of an effort to encourage people to get vaccinated.
The conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer, removed his jacket to reveal a white dress shirt with a hole in the sleeve. As he kept his baton moving and the orchestra continued to play, a doctor administered the injection, his third dose, to applause from the crowd.
The carefully choreographed event was an attempt to “raise awareness about the need for vaccination” in Hungary, said the orchestra’s executive director, Orsolya Erdodi.
“Vaccination can give us the opportunity to live and work normally again, just as we did before the coronavirus pandemic,” he said.
Hungary has enjoyed a calm summer in terms of the pandemic after a devastating spring, when the country had for a time the highest number of virus deaths per capita in the world.
While confirmed cases and deaths have dropped, the vaccination rate has also dramatically slowed. Hungary was one of the first leaders in vaccination, using doses from Russia and China, as well as those purchased through the European Union, to carry out one of the fastest immunization campaigns in the EU.
More than 32% of the adult population of the Central European country has not received a first injection amid stubborn vacillation hesitation. Since then, many other European countries have exceeded Hungary’s vaccination rate.
Hungary’s medical director has described a recent slow increase in cases as the beginning of a “fourth wave”, dominated by the highly transmissible delta variant.
With the threat of new cases looming, the Budapest Festival Orchestra decided to push vaccines and surveillance against the coronavirus.
Fischer, a frequent advocate for progressive social causes, not only got his booster dose, but members of his prestigious orchestra took rapid COVID-19 tests on stage Wednesday as the music continued to play.
“More vaccines and tests is the most important thing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, maintain a normal life and allow people to go to concerts,” said Erdodi, the executive director of the orchestra.
After reports published in July that China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which Hungary uses, may provide poor protection to older adults, Hungary became the first country of the 27 EU members to offer booster vaccines to people. who want them.
As of Thursday, 240,000 people in Hungary had received a booster dose.
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