Muscovites Lining Up for Vaccines Even After Officials Announce They’ve Run Out

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Even after Moscow officials concede that they have run out of some vaccines, many Russians are lining up at vaccination centers in the hopes that whatever officials are saying, something will in fact turn up and the only way they can be sure of getting the shots is to be present (znak.com/2021-07-11/v_moskve_vakcina_kovivak_konchilas_za_den and novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/07/11/kovivak-trebuiut-nashi-serdtsa).

            In doing so, Russians are ignoring not only these announcements but also suggestions by Mayor Sergey Sobyanin that the peak of the third wave of the pandemic is passing in the capital, although it is continuing to intensify elsewhere (regnum.ru/news/society/3315953.html, regnum.ru/news/3318760.html and znak.com/2021-07-11/sobyanin_moskva_proshla_pik_zabolevaemosti_covid_19).

            At the same time, resistance to the shots appears to be growing in many communities, with the first report so far of a case in which anti-vaxxer sentiments were posted on the website of the Moscow city police’s website (znak.com/2021-07-11/na_sayte_moskovskogo_profsoyuza_policii_poyavilas_kritika_privivki_ot_covid_19 

            Russian officials reported registering today 25,033 new cases of infection and 749 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, with approximately 40 percent of these in the two capitals and their adjoining oblasts (t.me/COVID2019_official/3264).\

            Russian analysts are devoting ever more attention to the collateral impact of the pandemic in Russia, including a sharp decline in the percentage of Russians, especially women, maintaining healthy ways of living and a sharp increase in mortality that will reduce the country’s population for decades to come (svpressa.ru/society/article/303808/  and ng.ru/economics/2021-07-11/1_8195_covid.html).

            Higher mortality rates not only mean that the population is cut now but also that there are thus fewer people who can have children in the future, pushing down the total Russian population still further. At present, demographers say, Russian officials have not come up with a policy to counter this trend.