Regret and defiance in Europe's vaccine-shy east as COVID-19 rages

A medic tends to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Pirogov hospital in Sofia, Bulgaria, October 15, 2021. Picture taken October 15, 2021. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

RIGA/SOFIA (Reuters) - As Latvia goes into lockdown and hospitals in Bulgaria and Romania buckle under a COVID-19 surge while Poland sells surplus vaccine doses, many central and eastern Europeans are torn between defiance and regret over not getting inoculated.

The region has the European Union's lowest vaccination rates, an unwelcome distinction in which both political and economic factors play a role, and deadlier variants of the virus are spreading there fast.