Fears of Corruption Behind Some Moscow Opposition to Making Vaccinations Mandatory

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 1 -- For the third day in a row, Russia has set records for the number of new infections and deaths and the Kremlin has warned that draconian measures may be needed to reverse the situation, but some in Moscow are worried that making vaccines mandatory will lead to a spike in corruption as Russians continue to try to buy their way out of getting the shots (regnum.ru/news/3310727.html, regnum.ru/news/3310628.html, regnum.ru/news/3310628.html and realtribune.ru/obyazatelnaya-vakcinaciya-privela-k-rascvetu-korrupcii).

            As the pandemic continued to intensify, Russian officials registered 23,543 new cases of infection and 672 new deaths from the coronavirus and said the country would not meet the goal of vaccinating 60 percent of the population by the fall (regnum.ru/news/society/3310819.html, t.me/COVID2019_official/3180 and kommersant.ru/doc/4878825).

            Vaccine shortages are being reported even in Moscow today (themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/03/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-july-4-a69117), and discussions have broken out as toi whether the slow rate of vaccination reflects that and the absence of foreign vaccines in Russia (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=60DD668685047 and gordonua.com/blogs/alfred-koh/vezde-smertnost-ot-covid-19-stala-sravnitelno-nizkoy-a-v-rf-naoborot-rekordnoe-kolichestvo-umershih-perestali-lechit-ili-vakcina-govno-1560418.html).

            Also being reported today are more cases of fraud regarding registration certificates and QR codes (msk.kp.ru/daily/28298/4437726/), problems sufficiently serious that they are affecting the work of the FSB and eliciting negative comments by the Kremlin (regnum.ru/news/society/3310721.html and regnum.ru/news/3310682.html).

            Several more regions are introducing mandatory vaccination requirements for some or all of their population, and sociologists say that only mandatory vaccination will slow the spread of the pandemic in Russia (kavkazr.com/a/31330540.html, kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/365549/ and

levada.ru/2021/06/30/bez-obyazatelnoj-vaktsinatsii-spravitsya-ne-udaetsya-sotsiolog/).

Officials are worried that the Duma voting process could become a super spreader event, and the Central Election Commission is seeking to vaccinate poll workers. At present, however, just over 30 percent of them have completed their shots (regnum.ru/news/3310404.html).

On the economic front, the deputy economics development minister says that for the next year or two, the development of the Russian economy will depend directly on how well the government copes with the pandemic. If the epidemiological situation gets worse, so too will the economy, Polina Kryuchkova says (regnum.ru/news/3310881.html).

Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Church continues its uneven approach to the coronavirus. Its Moscow parishes have been told to strengthen preventive measures, but its Valaam monastery has announced that it won’t exclude monks who refuse to get vaccinated (moseparh.ru/cirkulyarnoe-pismo-mitropolita-voskresenskogo-dionisiya-ot-30-iyunya-2021-goda-html.html ria.ru/20210630/monakhi-1739319986.html).