Zeman gets first dose of COVID-19 vaccine

President Milos Zeman received a coronavirus vaccine this afternoon at the Central Military Hospital in Prague. In a press release, his spokesman Jiří Ovčáček informed about it. Zeman received the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine. The president will remain in the hospital for the next two days due to a planned preventive medical examination.

Seventy-six-year-old Zeman is a proponent of vaccination and has repeatedly called on people to take it. He sees this as the only way to defeat the coronavirus pandemic. Initially, he wanted to wait for a single-dose vaccine, but in the end, on the advice of his surroundings, he decided to get vaccinated now. But he did not want the presence of television cameras. Zeman arrived at the hospital around 3 p.m.

Among the leading Czech politicians, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Minister of Health Jan Blatný have already been vaccinated. Representatives of other states are an example for the people. The British Queen Elizabeth II was vaccinated with her husband, the Norwegian royal couple Harald and Sonja, the Danish Queen Margrethe II., the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or the Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová. The incoming US President Joe Biden also underwent vaccination.

According to Ovčáček, Zeman will also undergo a planned comprehensive preventive medical examination in the hospital in the next two days. Zeman has previously said that he is undergoing computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. He has been in a military hospital several times in recent years. Last year, they operated on him with a broken arm, which he injured when he fell. A year earlier, he stayed at the ÚVN for four days on a reconditioning stay. Military doctors, for example, also examined his hearing. The president has been treated for a long time with lower limb neuropathy and diabetes.