Pandemic in Russia May Be Plateauing But at Level Twice as High as in August

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 28 – “Plateauing” is the word of the day, with officials in various parts of the Russian Federation saying they were at or near a plateau in the pandemic but acknowledging the new plateau is twice as high as the one in August (vtimes.io/2020/11/27/kovid-vzyal-novuyu-stupenku-a1679).

            But at the moment, the numbers continue to rise. Officials reported registering 27,100 new cases of infection and 510 deaths, bringing those tolls respectively to 2,242,633 and 39,068, with some places like St. Petersburg being particularly hard hit (t.me/COVID2019_official/2072 and regnum.ru/news/society/3122025.html).

            Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced that the government was distributing 80 billion rubles (1.1 billion US dollars) to 39 especially hard hit regions (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/82068). Talk about tougher measures is sparking both more violations and more complaints from Russians online (regnum.ru/news/3127485.html and regnum.ru/news/3127337.html).

            Moscow is distributing small amounts of the Sputnik-5 vaccine to hospitals but not enough to meet the demand; and the medical supply system is failing to meet the requirements event of apothecary shops in the capital (rbc.ru/society/28/11/2020/5fbf44319a794782c5754f9f and znak.com/2020-11-28/deputat_gosdumy_pozhalovalsya_chto_v_moskve_emu_ne_vydali_lekarstva_ot_covid_19).

            Looking to the future, some medical experts are saying that the majority of Russians will have been infected by the end of the year but adding that this won’t guarantee that they won’t be reinfected unless they are vaccinated (ura.news/news/1052460748), while others are insisting this means not everyone will have to be (regnum.ru/news/3127532.html).

            On the economic front, Accounting Chamber head Aleksey Kudrin says the there is more unemployment ahead and that a third of all small and mid-sized businesses in Russia will close, leading to a million Russians falling into poverty (regnum.ru/news/3127629.html and kp.ru/daily/21712093.5/4329625/).

            Meanwhile, in other pandemic-related developments in Russia today,

·         Almost half of all Russians suffering from HIV who display coronavirus symptoms are not going to hospitals because they fear they will lose their anonymity. As a result, a larger share of them are likely to develop full-blown AIDS (rbc.ru/society/27/11/2020/5fbf7bb19a7947a0d039c69a).

·         Russian doctors who have been fighting the pandemic for months say that they no longer approach their work with fear but with the conviction that they have the tools they need to cure most of those who come for care (kommersant.ru/doc/4592558).

·         500,000 Russians have taken out insurance policies against possible loss of life from the coronavirus (vedomosti.ru/economics/articles/2020/11/26/848480-koronavirus-prostimuliroval-strahovanie-zhizni).