Many Russian Teachers Resist Wearing Masks or Getting Vaccine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 30 – The Russian government has ordered that teachers wear masks but has declared that they do not have to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Many teachers object to wearing masks, and many are unlikely to get the vaccine when it becomes available (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/79556 and regnum.ru/news/3049242.html).

            As a result, some parents fear that Russian schools will become super spreader centers and are seeking to keep their children at home.  That is raising tensions in many places despite official efforts to suggest that the opening of this school year will be just as safe as any in the past (echo.msk.ru/news/2700937-echo.html).

            Another public concern has arisen in Russia in response to Western coverage of the Moscow’s reported breakthrough on a vaccine. Some in the West have said and some in Russia are repeating that if this vaccine doesn’t work, more people will reject vaccinations in general sparking a decline in public health (meduza.io/feature/2020/08/30/esli-vaktsina-ne-srabotaet-eto-budet-na-ruku-protivnikam-privivok).

            Today, Russian officials registered 4890 new cases of coronavirus infection in the Russian Federation as a whole, pushing the total so far over 990,000, and 68 new deaths, raising that toll to 17,0893 (t.me/COVID2019_official/1384). Regional variations continued as the pandemic ebbed and flowed (regnum.ru/news/society/3045839.html).

            In some places, including St. Petersburg, officials are retreating from their reopening of some public spaces and going to great lengths to reassure the population that medical facilities are quite prepared for a second wave even though the Kremlin has been saying such a development is unlikely in Russia (regnum.ru/news/3049309.html).

            An important measure of how the pandemic has hit the pocketbooks of ordinary Russians is a figure showing that payments for communal services declined by 31 percent in June, likely because Russians are using fewer services and because they simply aren’t paying these bills (tass.ru/ekonomika/9312207).