Why do Bulgarians Resist Vaccination Against COVID-19? Reflections on an Outlier
Why do Bulgarians Resist Vaccination Against COVID-19? Reflections on an Outlier

Summary/Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed some of the divisions existing within the European Union. The rates of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 clearly divide Western from Eastern European countries. The article presents “the curious case” of Bulgaria, which has the lowest vaccination uptake of all EU countries. Even though Bulgaria had been receiving vaccines since the beginning of 2021, by the end of November of that year, scarcely 25% of Bulgarians were fully vaccinated, a percentage far below that of the second lowest-ranking country in this respect, Romania. In seeking an explanation for the scepticism of the Bulgarian population towards vaccination, and analysing the roots of the problem, the authors use the Vaccine Hesitancy Matrix of Determinants, developed by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts at the World Health Organisation. The research reconstructs and traces the public institutions’ efforts to govern the crisis and shows that, in 2021, a constellation of three groups of determinants intensified hesitant attitudes to anti-COVID-19 vaccination. The study is based on media and content analysis of documents, as well as on secondary data analysis, interpreted through the frame of the Vaccine Hesitancy Matrix of Determinants as a heuristic perspective for understanding a specific pattern of vaccination hesitancy. The analysis reveals that the main driving forces of growing hesitation and behaviour regarding vaccination are the populist use of experts and authorities’ positions and the low level of public understanding of science, technology and medicine.

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