Eurasianet

In our weekly briefing: Restrictions easing, COVID denialism persists, foreign suitors come visiting in hope of business, and the latest annual horse jamboree.

The country has belatedly introduced a COVID pass system to enter restaurants and bars as the vaccination rate remains at just 28 percent.

Employers are now effectively required to demand proof of vaccinations from their workers. But the country’s health care system is now being pushed to the limit.

Middle-class Afghans with the means to navigate Tajikistan’s bureaucracy see the country as a springboard to the West.

The government hopes to boost vaccination rates, but a new anti-vaccine campaign is on the rise.

In recent years the Caucasus country has become a magnet for Iranian students, business owners, and dissidents. But now many report they’re not being allowed to enter.

The new rules come as the country is trying to stave off a third wave of the virus and vaccination numbers remain in the low single digits.

While clumsy on COVID-19, Turkmenistan is being more sure-footed, or consistent at least, on the Afghanistan front. Plus, unsustainable agriculture. Our weekly briefing.

The government signals it is taking COVID a bit more seriously, without admitting the virus is running rampant. And Ashgabat gets down to business with the Taliban. This and more in our weekly briefing.

There has been a surge in the number of Pakistanis visiting for tourism.

Iranians have been flooding into Armenia to get COVID vaccines, causing Tehran to complain and Yerevan to tighten the rules.

Vaccine hesitancy in Uzbekistan is high, bred by social media conspiracies that seem credible in a country without accountable authorities.

Our Kazakhstan correspondent describes the waiting, the bureaucracy, and the anticlimax of getting his Sputnik V jab in Almaty.

Although Turkmenistan is rarely mentioned as a prospective member of the Moscow-led EAEU trading bloc, that notion is quite obviously on the Kremlin’s mind. Our weekly briefing.

Hopes are being pinned on the Sino-Uzbek vaccine ZF-UZ-VAC 2001.