Lithuanian news portals turn off COVID-19 vaccine comments

Picture taken on September 28, 2020, shows a street in the Uzupis neigborhood in Vilnius, Lithuania, amid the novel coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic. AFP FILE PHOTO

VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania’s biggest news portals on Wednesday said they were switching off public comments on their articles about Covid-19 vaccines in an effort aimed at curbing conspiracy theories.

Some 71 percent of adults in the eurozone country of 2.8 million people are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 — a higher rate than many of its neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe.

But infection rates have surged in recent days.

“We are showing solidarity with the state and society with the common effort to disable the unfounded misinformation spread by anti-vaxxers,” Arnas Marcinkus, head of the Association of Online Media in Lithuania, told AFP.

“The success of the vaccination campaign must be our common cause, without excluding the government or the media. We all need to find solutions to get out of the pandemic,” he said.

In October, Lithuania’s parliament approved a cash incentive of 100 euros for people aged 75 and over who get vaccinated.

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