Andriy Melnik, a truck driver, never took the coronavirus seriously. He obtained a phony vaccination certificate with the help of a friend so that his travel credentials would appear to be in order when he carried freight to other regions of Europe.

His perspective shifted after a buddy with COVID-19 and ended up on a ventilator in an intensive care unit.

“It’s not a tall tale,” says the narrator. “I realize that this illness kills, and that great immunity isn’t enough — only a vaccination can protect you,” Melnik, 42, said as he waited for his shot in Kyiv. “I’m terrified, and I’m begging physicians to help me right my error.”

“Death from coronavirus looks to be more closer than I expected,” he added.

Coronavirus infections are on the rise in Ukraine, as well as other countries of Eastern Europe and Russia. Vaccines are abundant, but many countries are reluctant to use them – prominent exceptions being the Baltic countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Hungary.

According to Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe COVID-19 incident manager, the delayed rate of vaccinations in Eastern Europe is due to a number of issues, including public skepticism and previous vaccine experience.

“At the end of the day,” she told The Associated Press, “we’re seeing low vaccination uptake across a large swath of nations across that area of the region.” “Vaccine-related historical concerns come into play. In any event, the vaccination issue is politicized in some nations.”

With only about a third of the country’s nearly 146 million people fully vaccinated, Russia recorded 1,123 deaths in 24 hours on Wednesday, the highest daily toll since the pandemic began. The Kremlin has ordered a nationwide strike to begin this week and extend until November 7.

Only 16 percent of the adult population in Ukraine is completely vaccinated, second lowest in Europe behind Armenia’s rate of barely more than 7%.

Teachers, government personnel, and other professionals in Ukraine are being forced to get completely vaccinated by Nov. 8 or fear losing their jobs. To board flights, trains, and long-distance buses, evidence of immunization or a negative test is now required.

This has resulted in a thriving underground market for fake documents. Fake vaccination certificates may cost anywhere from $100 and $300. According to Mykhailo Fedorov, minister of digital transformation, there is even a fake version of the government’s digital app with counterfeit certificates already installed.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting last week to discuss ways to combat counterfeits. Police believe that employees at 15 hospitals are engaged in the falsification of vaccination certificates.

According to Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, police have initiated 800 criminal cases into such fakes and deployed 100 mobile units to search down their owners. When they returned to Ukraine last week, they even nabbed a former politician who had manufactured a fraudulent vaccination record.

COVID-19 has spread quickly as a result of the poor vaccination coverage, putting further strain on the country’s already overburdened health-care system.

The surgical ward of a hospital in Biliaivka, near the Black Sea port of Odesa, is now exclusively treating coronavirus patients, with 50 of its 52 beds occupied. Drugs and oxygen are running out, and some hospital employees are resigning.

“We are on the edge of disaster, pushed by anti-vaccination activists and a shortage of funding,” said Dr. Serhiy Shvets, the ward’s chief. “Unfortunately, five of my ward’s employees have resigned in the last week.”

A 120-bed hospital in the western city of Chernivtsi, where Dr. Olha Kobevko claims she has 126 patients in critical condition, appears to be in a similar scenario.

“When I find that 99 percent of COVID-19 patients in bad condition are unvaccinated, and those people might have protected themselves,” the infectious disease specialist told the Associated Press. “We’re battling to rescue them because we don’t have enough medications or resources.”

According to Kobevko, the current spike appears to be particularly dangerous, with 10-23 people dying daily at her facility, compared to less than six per day last spring. She also mentioned that the number of patients in their 30s and 40s has increased significantly.

She attributes this to growing vaccination mistrust, which she attributes to social media and religious views.

“False stories have gone viral, leading people to believe in microchips and genetic mutations,” said Kobevko. “Some Orthodox priests have publicly and forcefully advised people not to get vaccines, and social media has been flooded with the most ridiculous falsehoods. Ukrainians have learnt to be skeptical of every government endeavor, and vaccination is no exception.”

Lidia Buiko, 72, preferred the Chinese Sinovac vaccination over the Western vaccines because she believed the Western vaccines included microchips that were used to control the populace.

As she waited in Kyiv, she remarked, “Priests have advised us to think twice about becoming inoculated – it would be hard to get rid of the chip.”

Vaccine apprehension persists even among medical professionals. Shvets claims that 30% of his personnel at his Biliaivka hospital have refused the injections, and Health Minister Viktor Lyashko admits that roughly half of Ukrainian doctors are still hesitant to get them.

False and inaccurate information on COVID-19, according to UNICEF’s representative in Ukraine, Murat Sahin, is becoming an increasing problem.

“The stakes have never been higher –– nor have the hazards of vaccine disinformation,” he added.

Online disinformation, religious convictions, suspicion of government authorities, and dependence on alternative therapies have all increased skepticism in Eastern Europe.

In Romania, where only around 35% of individuals are completely inoculated, stricter restrictions went into place this week, requiring vaccination certificates for numerous everyday activities like attending to the gym, the cinema, or shopping malls. A curfew of 10 p.m. is in effect, with businesses closing at 9 p.m., pubs and clubs closing for 30 days, and masks being required in public.

Many people are “afraid of vaccinations” as a result of the “massive (amount of) false information that has inundated social media and television,” according to Dr. Dragos Zaharia of the Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology in Bucharest.

“Every day, we encounter patients with shortness of breath who are apologizing for not been vaccinated,” he told the Associated Press. “Every day on our ward, we watch individuals dying.” We see folks who are terrified.”

Bulgaria recorded record illnesses and fatalities this week, despite barely a quarter of the adult population being completely vaccinated. Bulgaria has the highest COVID-19 fatality rate in the 27-nation European Union in the last two weeks, according to official data, with 94 percent of those who died being unvaccinated.

Only 33% of Georgia’s population has been properly vaccinated, prompting officials to hold a lottery with cash awards for those who receive vaccinations. Dr. Bidzina Kulumbegov, on the other hand, lamented the poor pace of vaccines.

The government’s public awareness campaign “was not tailored to the unique characteristics of our nation.” In televised remarks, Kulumbegov stated that “the emphasis should have been done, for example, on the Georgian Orthodox Church, because we have numerous situations when priests argue that vaccination is a sin.”

The dread of contracting COVID-19 exceeded all other worries for Melnik, a Ukrainian truck driver.

He stated, “You can’t cheat this sickness.” “You can buy a fake certificate, but antibodies aren’t available for purchase.” Ukrainians are gradually realizing that there is no other option but immunization.”