PM on big business vaccination: there's no point in accumulating vaccines

Explaining the recent decision to allow vaccinating groups of workers from bigger companies, although the vaccination based on age groups and professions has not been completed yet, the prime minister said that "there's no point in accumulating that (AstraZeneca) vaccine".

"These are two separate processes and we need to understand that very well. Lithuania will receive around 120,000 dozes of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines over the upcoming two weeks, and if 65+ people are vaccinated with these vaccines, then we have 70 percent of these people who have had at least one dose," Simonyte told journalists on Thursday.

"Obviously, we have priorities but we also have that vaccine that tends to accumulate due to not a very good public opinion, and I believe there's no point in accumulating that vaccine and wait for mass vaccination when we have companies with big groups of workers where it can be used," the prime minister said.

In her words, the vaccination of company workers would be a parallel process and would undermine the key priority of vaccinating elder people.

Earlier in the day, the Health Ministry said that businesses having at least 100 workers were being invited to vaccinate their staff members. The ministry later specified that such workers would be vaccinated only if vaccines were left following the vaccination of a specific priority group in that specific week.

Lithuanian has so far received 717,245 vaccines dozes and has used 596,505 dozes.