Russian Hopes for Coronavirus Vaccine and Economic Improvement Soon Fading

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – Russian medical experts following the WHO announcement that vaccines which had been under testing haven’t worked said that it may be some time before an effective one is available (http://www.sobkorr.org/material.php?id=5F018B6CD1113, hnewizv.ru/news/politics/05-07-2020/uroki-pandemii-ot-vracha-tri-problemy-kotorye-postavil-covid-19 and svpressa.ru/health/article/270036/).

            Indeed, some Russian immunologists say it may be necessary to wait for herd immunity to be established, a state in which more than half of the population has experienced the disease and acquired some protection against reinfection and thereby limit the spread of the virus (rbc.ru/society/05/07/2020/5e2fe9459a79479d102bada6).

            Such announcements left ever more Russians pessimistic about the short term as did new evidence that the country’s economy will take several years or even longer to recover to where it was seven years ago. That means Russia has lost another decade in its development, one economist says (business-gazeta.ru/article/473782).

            The official figures on the pandemic brought no relief either: There were 6736 new cases of infection over the last 24 hours, raising the total so far in the pandemic to 681,251; and the number of fatal outcomes rose by 134 to 10,161 (t.me/COVID2019_official/964). Many continue to suspect that all these figures understate the problem.

            Especially worrisome were reports that while some places are showing improvement, the number of cases of coronavirus infection in the northern capital, St. Petersburg, is now rising, possibly as a result of that city’s opening up two weeks ago (echo.msk.ru/news/2671531-echo.html).

            Banks now have so many bad loans that they risk collapse, one study says, because they lack the reserves necessary to cover likely losses (https://krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/77874). Losses are likely to increase if the Duma adopts proposed legislation to simplify bankruptcy procedures (profile.ru/economy/dlya-grazhdan-uprostitsya-put-k-bankrotstvu-357671/).

            With the economy in trouble, the government is taking two steps, a small one that will support continued employment for some 80,000 Russians (government.ru/news/39970/) and a larger and broader effort to extract more money from the population by demanding those who returned from abroad independently return any money they received from the government (capost.media/news/obshchestvo/the-russians-who-arrived-independently-because-of-the-pandemic-was-asked-to-return-the-money/), working out a scheme to have Russians pay even more directly for road repairs (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/77921) and even taxing well water in dacha areas (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/77908).

            Meanwhile, in other pandemic-related news from Russia today,

·         Thirteen draftees in Mordvinia are suspected of having become infected with the coronavirus and have been confined for observation (tass.ru/obschestvo/8889681).

·         Ever more medical personnel in Russia are being diagnosed with the infection, far more in percentage terms than this category of people are experiencing in other countries (e.g, ngs24.ru/news/more/69349381/).

·         Despite massive unemployment among Russians, Vladimir Putin is pushing to expand immigration, a move dictated by the fact that one in four Russian men of working age is employed by the military or security services and thus is not in a position to contribute to economic recovery (https://el-murid.livejournal.com/4502083.html).