To Block Spread of Pandemic, Moscow Suspends Flights to Turkey

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 12 – Saying Turkey has the worst epidemiological situation of any country Russia has flights to, Moscow has suspended flights to and from there from April 15 through May 31 thus leaving 30,000 Russians stranded and 500,000 more with tickets they now won’t be able to use and Turkey without the income their visits would have brought (regnum.ru/news/3240875.html, regnum.ru/news/3240877.html, regnum.ru/news/3240884.html and rbc.ru/society/12/04/2021/6074adfa9a79473da0e456ac).

            Today, the Russian government reported registering 8320 new cases of infection and 277 new deaths from the pandemic over the last 24 hours as the pandemic trended downward in most places but continued to spike in some (t.me/COVID2019_official/2760 and regnum.ru/news/society/3233862.html).

            On the vaccine front, the Kremlin said it knew of no data that would support the New York Times report about massive undercounting of deaths in the Russian Federation (regnum.ru/news/3240376.html). Officials also said that Russia has identified 49 cases of coronavirus infection from unknown mutations of the virus (regnum.ru/news/3240913.html).

            The Russian defense ministry reported that “more than 400,000” soldiers and sailors have received the full course of vaccination and that “more than 530,000” have received the first shot in the series (regnum.ru/news/3240025.html).

            On the economic front, analysts said that the pandemic has so changed consumption patterns that calculations of inflation on the basis of the old mix of goods no longer apply and that a new mix needs to be used instead (ng.ru/economics/2021-04-12/2_8126_economics.html).

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

·         Officials announced that the Lenin Mausoleum will be open for visits as of April 17 (regnum.ru/news/3240408.html).

·         Saratov officials spent 120,000 US dollars quarantining residents who were expected to meet Vladimir Putin during his visit there (twitter.com/meduza_en/status/1381610874956345346).

·         Experts now say that herd immunity is such a slippery concept that it is not clear when or if Russia will reach it and what it might mean if current targets are achieved (meduza.io/feature/2021/04/12/v-rossii-ochen-mnogo-lyudey-perebolelo-kovidom-znachit-strana-blizka-k-kollektivnomu-immunitetu-i-vse-skoro-konchitsya).