Preventing the Coronavirus Catastrophe: Yerevan State Medical University Rector Appeals to Media

Yerevan State Medical University Rector Armen Muradyan has made a post on his Facebook page, appealing to all leaders of mass media outlets.

“Dear and beloved journalists, it has been at least 7 months since the vaccination process began in Armenia, and we, the healthcare workers, have unfortunately managed to explain to only 12% of the population that there is currently no alternative; we must choose the urgent solution of vaccination. I know that one of the most important and powerful weapons for building public trust is in your hands today, so I ask you, let’s add your weapons to our arsenal as healthcare workers, so that we can prevent this coronavirus catastrophe that is raging through the world and has claimed the lives of 6,582 people living in Armenia according to official data...

The 12% result has proven to me that the absence or incorrect application of your available weapons in our collection of weapons complicates our struggle against this insidious disease at every moment.

It is no secret that today the biggest lever for presenting information to the public belongs to the fourth estate. The freedom in the social realm has become accessible to everyone, and an uncontrolled opportunity has opened up for everyone to work with open data, to publicize information that needs research, processing, correlation, analysis, and then only publicization.

I am ready to provide all the scientific potential of the medical university so that TOGETHER we can present only reliable and fact-based medical information to the public.

Believe me, amidst the streams of coronavirus misinformation, your literate work as journalists is as essential as air and water for us, the doctors.

The White Army is proudly doing its job today, and I propose and request that you join the White Army so that together we can extract only scientific materials from this flood of coronavirus misinformation and present them to the PUBLIC.

As a result, we will prevent the coronavirus catastrophe, save lives, and create a stable foundation for having a healthy generation.

P.S. Starting from Monday, a working group will be established at YSMU to provide professional information to the media. The working group has a clear principle: it will operate objectively, quickly, factually, and constructively. On Monday, we will present the specialists and their contact details, which will be available for 7 days, 24 hours a day.”