Friday’s vaccinations turned chaotic following Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s statement that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines would finally be accessible to everyone on Friday, and Friday alone, since afterwards it would not be available for weeks. The vaccine registry database was overwhelmed and crashed early in the morning, likely due to thousands of people wanting to be vaccinated with the 100 thousand doses of the vaccine. Hungarians around the country, both registered and non-registered, ended up waiting in lines hundreds of meters long.
Hungary’s vaccination program has progressed quite well, with the country being second best in the EU in proportion to its population inoculated with at least one jab. However, hundreds of thousands of people have been eagerly awaiting their first shot. Some of them only wanted the more popular Western vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, but these, with a few exceptions, were only accessible to the elderly, healthcare workers, Olympians,