Moscow, Far East Lead in Vaccinations, North Caucasus Lags Far Behind

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 20 – As Russia completes its fifth week of vaccinations against the coronavirus, more than three million people there have been vaccinated; but the numbers vary widely among the regions of the country, with Moscow and the Far East leading and the North Caucasus lagging far behind (regnum.ru/news/3197419.html, rbc.ru/society/20/02/2021/602fb2019a7947f5acf0a70a and doshdu.com/respubliki-severnogo-kavkaza-zanimajut-poslednie-mesta-po-vakcinirovanija-ot-koronavirusa/).

            One category of Russians to which the authorities appear to be giving particular attention as far as vaccinations are concerned is the military, where uniformed personnel and their families are being inoculated at far higher rates than the population as a whole (regnum.ru/news/3197406.html and regnum.ru/news/3196476.html).

            Russian officials reported registering 12,953 new infections and 480 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, with both continuing the downward trends of recent days (t.me/COVID2019_official/2501), even though there were places where the numbers increased (regnum.ru/news/society/3195444.html).

            Of Russians as a whole who have received the vaccine, 45 percent of them are over 60, Moscow says (regnum.ru/news/3196878.html). Elsewhere on the vaccine front, the Russian government registered its third vaccine against the coronavirus, and the developers of Sputnik-5 said there were beginning tests of a combined vaccine with AstraZeneca (echo.msk.ru/news/2793728-echo.html and echo.msk.ru/news/2793648-echo.html).

            Also today, San Marino became the 30^th country to authorize the use of the Russian vaccine (sputnikvaccine.com/newsroom/pressreleases/sputnik-v-authorized-in-30-countries/).

            On the economic front, rising prices combined with falling incomes mean that Russians are now spending 38.5 percent of their incomes on food, the highest share since 2010 (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/83805).

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

·         One Moscow PR effort regarding Russian vaccines has met with a mixed reception. Some Russians are pleased that Moscow has shown the superiority of its vaccines by offering them to foreign diplomats in the Russian capital. Others are angry that the medicine is not going to Russians first (regnum.ru/news/3197193.html).

·         Moscow TV doctor Aleksandr Myasnikov warns that the new strain of bird flu may mutate and spark a new pandemic (ura.news/news/1052472824).

·         And an analysis of Vladimir Putin’s media appearances concludes that he is gradually emerging from the bunker but still being shown almost exclusively communicating with others via the Internet (meduza.io/episodes/2021/02/20/putin-vyshel-c-karantina-i-zagovoril-o-passionariyah-konstantinopole-i-smeshenii-krovey-nakipelo-ili-eto-teper-ego-i-zaodno-rossii-novaya-ideologiya).