Since Aleksandar Vučić came to power, Serbia has suffered from democratic backsliding into authoritarianism, followed by a decline in media freedom and civil liberties. Massive anti-government protests began in 2018 and continued into 2020, making them one of Europe's longest-running protests. After the COVID-19 pandemic spread to Serbia in March 2020, a state of emergency was declared and a curfew was introduced for the first time in Serbia since World War II. In January and February 2021 Serbia carried the second-fastest vaccine rollout in Europe.