Duma Passes Law Allowing Russian Firms to Steal and Use Foreign Medical Secrets without Permission

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 14 – Today, the Duma passed on third reading a measure that will allow Russian pharmaceutical firms to steal ideas and techniques from their foreign counterparts without being subject to any penalties from Russian law. Krizi-kopilka labeled this a right to “piracy” (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/84813).

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 8326 new cases of infection and 399 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours as the pandemic ebbed and flowed across the country, easing in most places but spiking in a few (t.me/COVID2019_official/2774 and regnum.ru/news/society/3241939.html).

            The Moscow Patriarchate reported that 4745 religious had contracted the virus and 152 had died from the pandemic (regnum.ru/news/3243345.html). In another statistic, a majority of Russian parents said that distance learning was less effective for their children than in classroom instruction (iarex.ru/articles/80538.html).

            On the vaccine front, Vladimir Putin received his second shot of the vaccine today, and Vedomosti said his example had already “sharply increased” the number of Russians who want to be vaccinated (regnum.ru/news/3243017.html and echo.msk.ru/news/2821606-echo.html).

On the economic front, an HSE study found that the pandemic had significantly increased interaction between business and government and the dependence of the former on the latter creating what the authors said was “a new reality” for the economy and the political system (iq.hse.ru/news/459401210.html).

Russian resorts raised their rates after Moscow shut down the possibility for Russians to travel to Turkey for their vacations (kommersant.ru/doc/4771951), and the city of Moscow called for the government to slow the return of migrant workers to Russia lest they overwhelm the system and create instability (nazaccent.ru/content/35540-meriya-moskvy-v-stolice-neobhodimo-poetapno.html).

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

·         Officials said that all those attending the Petersburg Economic Forum in June will be tested for the coronavirus and not just those scheduled to meet with Putin (regnum.ru/news/3242909.html).

·         A Levada Center survey found that religion became more important for some Russians during the pandemic but far from all (levada.ru/2021/04/14/religioznost-v-period-pandemii/).

·         Patriarch Kirll said believers could not be infected with the coronavirus during the distribution of the host at church services (nazaccent.ru/content/35545-patriarh-kirill-veruyushie-ne-mogut-zarazitsya.html).