Russia Seen Earning 30 Billion US Dollars from Sale of Vaccines Abroad

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – Aleksandr Razuvayev, head of the Alpari Research Center, says Russia stands to earn 30 billion US dollars from the sale of its vaccines abroad during 2021-2022, a figure so large that it will make up for many other losses from declines in Russian exports (regnum.ru/news/3236576.html).

            As the pandemic continued to ebb and flow across Russia, Moscow announced that it had registered 8294 new cases of infection and 374 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours (t.me/COVID2019_official/2737 and regnum.ru/news/society/3233862.html).

            Two new Russian studies appeared, reporting respectively that distance learning has had an adverse psychological impact on many children (realtribune.ru/distancionnoe-obuchenie-v-rossii-grobit-zdorove-nashih-detej-psiholog and that adults infected often suffered with psychological problems after recovery (trtrussian.com/life/uchenye-vyyavili-psihicheskie-rasstrojstva-u-treti-perebolevshih-covid-19-5066690).

            On the vaccine front, Vladimir Puitin said that Russia was producing enough Sputnik-5 vaccine to inoculate all Russians who want it given that “not all” do (regnum.ru/news/3236795.html). There may be fewer customers abroad, however, now that the EU has announced plans to investigate whether Russia violated ethical and scientific norms in developing its vaccine (bfm.ru/news/469201)

            On the economic front, the Kremlin denied that Russia is in the midst of an economic crisis (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/84707), as the leader of a business group said he was confident the government would provide aid to his members if there is a new wave of the pandemic (regnum.ru/news/3236795.html).

            The head of the Federation of Migrants of Russia said at least one million workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus will flood into the Russian Federation as soon as the borders are opened (nazaccent.ru/content/35498-vadim-kozhenov-posle-otkrytiya-granic-v.html and rg.ru/2021/04/06/vesnoj-chislo-reziume-migrantov-v-rossii-vyroslo-na-55-procentov.html).

            And a survey of Russian workers found that more than two-thirds would like to come back to the office but for less than five days a week (polit.ru/article/2021/04/07/office/).

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

·         The Russian government said its certificates of vaccination would automatically be available in English, undercutting Moscow’s earlier statement that these were not for international use (regnum.ru/news/3236473.html).

·         Sergey Furgal, the former Khabarovsk governor whose ouster sparked months of protests, has contracted the coronavirus in Lefotovo prison’s detention center (regnum.ru/news/3236015.html).

·         Russia’s Muslims have been told by their leaders that during Ramadan, they should be vaccinated only in the nighttime hours (nazaccent.ru/content/35490-musulmanam-rekomendovali-vakcinirovatsya-v-ramadan-posle.html).