Russia Likely to Face Spike in Covid Cases Because of Putin’s Extension of May Holidays, Epidemiologists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 24 – By lengthening the May holidays, Vladimir Putin likely has guaranteed that Russia will face a new spike in covid cases afterwards, epidemiologists warn, unless the population proves more disciplined in wearing masks and maintaining social distance than it has in recent months.

            More than that, they say, the country is likely to face new waves of the pandemic in the future with some in the regions again talking about the possibility of “mini-lockdowns” to try to control a situation that they feel may soon get much worse (regnum.ru/news/3252252.html, meduza.io/feature/2021/04/24/v-rossii-vveli-nerabochie-dni-s-1-po-10-maya-iz-za-oslozhneniya-epidemiologicheskoy-obstanovki-otvette-prosto-prishla-tretya-volna, and  govoritmagadan.ru/chihat-my-na-vas-hoteli-ili-mini-lokdaun-v-usloviyah-smyagcheniya-koronavirusnyh-ogranichenij/).

            Moreover, Academy of Science experts say that Putin has offered “an illusory notion” about the future in his suggestion that the victims will have to pay the price for recovery, something that they say is likely to make the epidemiological and demographic situation in Russia even worse (business-gazeta.ru/article/507177).

            And others are expressing concern that the Kremlin has utterly failed to address the consequences to the country of what many are now calling “the post-covid syndrome.” It affects approximately two million Russians, reduces their capacity to work and requires more medical attention than they are getting now (kommersant.ru/doc/4783745).

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 8828 new cases of infection and 399 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, as the pandemic continued to ebb and flow in various parts of the Russian Federation (ht.me/COVID2019_official/2830  and regnum.ru/news/society/3250801.html).

            On the vaccine front, Rostekh announced that it has developed a single-shot vaccine that will protect people from both the flu and the coronavirus (ura.news/news/1052482240).

            And on the economic front, a new HSE study finds that the pandemic has reduced the willingness of Russians to change jobs but increased their worries about the economic conditions of the firms which employ them (newizv.ru/article/general/24-04-2021/pandemiya-i-rabota-kak-izmenilsya-rynok-truda-za-odin-god).