A few days ago, a thoughtful article appeared in The Moscow Times, which explained that the bad reputation Sputnik-V has acquired over the last few months was mostly the fault of the Russian government, which created a political issue out of the country’s ability to market the Russian product early and, despite shortages at home, to make sure that the vaccine reaches as many foreign markets as possible. After months of controversy, it turned out that the Russian vaccine is efficacious, but its reputation was damaged by premature and exaggerated claims of success.
Judy Twigg, the author of the article, maintains that Russian policy regarding the Sputnik-V vaccine has its roots in “Putin’s immediate need for a solid political win” at home. Praise of the Russian product was accompanied by “snarky bashing” of western vaccines. But lately, since the western and more trusted vaccines are in short supply, interest in the Russian vaccine has increased. This is the case even within the European Union, where EU President Ursula von der Leyen is being blamed for agreements signed with Pfizer and AstraZeneca, which gave the companies too much leeway in fulfilling their obligations.
According to Der Spiegel, “Europe is facing a vaccine disaster,” while, in the editors’ opinion, some countries, for example the United States, “are quickly moving ahead with vaccinations.” Living in the United States, I gained a different impression in the last couple of months, but we will see what President Biden can achieve. Spiegel doesn’t mince words when it claims that “the next several weeks could decide Ursula von der Leyen’s political future.” All of these developments only enhance the value of Sputnik-V, the vaccine the Orbán government has long been counting on to fill gaps.
As early as September 2020, a serious propaganda effort was launched in the government media, starting with a triumphant announcement about the use of Sputnik-V in Russia. The paper reported in mid-December that 6,000 inhabitants of Moscow had been vaccinated in a week, which, it doesn’t matter how I look at it, doesn’t strike me as a humongous achievement.
At about the same time, the Hungarian government also started talking up the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. The pro-government press described it glowing terms. The propaganda for Sinopharm became especially fervent when doses of the Sinopharm vaccine arrived in Serbia. The government propaganda publications were full of stories about the Serbians’ preference for the Chinese vaccine over western vaccines. About a week ago, Magyar Nemzet quoted a United Arab Emirates source that claimed Sinopharm’s efficacy is “extraordinarily high,” 86%. The government’s efforts to boost people’s trust in the vaccine is obvious, but, instead, their mixed messages only add to the confusion.
As László Kéri, in a Hírklikk article, said, “we know everything and yet we know nothing.” On the one hand, an incredible amount of information is available, yet the predictions often turn out to be mirages. Kéri brings up the example of Great Britain, where by now over 12 million people have been vaccinated yet the number of victims is still very high. In Hungary, only about 2% of the population have been inoculated so far, and, given the lack of well-laid-out plans and the haphazard way of administering the available doses, one cannot hope for speedy, widespread vaccination even if plenty of vaccine arrives in the near future.
As it stands now, Hungary has approved the emergency use of six different vaccines, but whether this fast-tracking will ensure Viktor Orbán’s political aim, an economic recovery before next year’s election, will depend on whether the Russian and Chinese vaccines arrive at the promised time and whether the population will be willing to get vaccinated with vaccines developed in Russia and China, or at all. The beginnings don’t look promising. The first batch of Sputnik-V turned out to be much smaller than expected. Most people predict that, regardless of governments’ best efforts, western economies will not rebound before the end of 2021, and that is bad news for Viktor Orbán.
Of course, as with almost everything else in Hungary, the choice of vaccine is a political question. Ákos Hadházy, an independent member of parliament, is one of the Orbán government’s most hated domestic adversaries, mostly because his prime interest is unearthing the many thousands of corruption cases attached to the government party and its members. This time, however, Hadházy, a veterinarian, decided to look into OGYÉI’s tests of Sputnik-V. My limited knowledge of the process (and of science in general) doesn’t allow me to pass judgment on Hadházy’s observations, but he claims that, of the eight tests that must be performed before emergency use of a vaccine can be granted, OGYÉI performed only four, the less important ones. Missing are tests of the uniformity of the material, the active ingredient content, the residual live adenovirus content in cell culture, and abnormal toxicity.
Hadházy was immediately attacked by the head of OGYÉI in Magyar Nemzet, but we know that the independent group of experts refused to sign off on the Russian vaccine because they found that the active ingredient content was uneven in the vials. Moreover, it is unlikely that OGYÉI withheld the most important, already performed tests from Hadházy. The answer from the director of OGYÉI accused him of “obvious incompetence” and of “painting a completely false picture” of the licensing procedure. However, if one reads OGYÉI’s answer carefully, it becomes evident that these tests were, after all, not performed by the institute. It now claims that, before the vaccine is used, the National Center of Public Health will perform the rest of the tests. No wonder that trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic in general is extraordinarily low.