As Its Pandemic Cases Rise Another 10,000, Russia Gets Its First Monument to Self-Isolation

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – The number of new cases of coronavirus infections in the Russian Federation continued to rise by more than 10,000 today as testing spreads and because Muscovites who were exposed during the checking of passes two weeks ago now have had enough time to come down with the disease.

            But perhaps the high point of the pandemic in Russia today is concerned was the erection of Russia’s first statue to those who are self-isolating.  Erected by persons unknown in St. Petersburg’s Kalinin district, it shows a man and his cat contained with an open cube (megapolisonline.ru/chelovek-i-koshka-v-peterburge-poyavilsya-pamyatnik-samoizolyatsii/ and region.expert/man-and-cat/).

            Made of heavy metal beams, the monument would be difficult for anyone to remove.

            Meanwhile, there were five other pandemic-related developments worthy of note:

·         350 doctors and nurses have walked off the job in Kaliningrad because the authorities are failing to provide them with adequate protective gear. The head of the regional health ministry office says he can hardly blame them (capost.media/news/obshchestvo/in-the-kaliningrad-region-hundreds-of-doctors-refused-to-work-during-a-pandemic/).

·         St. Petersburg officials have come up with a clever way to defend the state against suits by doctors who say they were infected by the virus because of inadequate protective gear. The authorities say that they will insist that any doctor making that claim prove to the courts that he or she is not to blame for this situation (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/193915?fcc).

·         The number of Russian soldiers infected with the coronavirus has risen by 340 over the last 24 hours, officials say and now stands at “almost 1400.” For the defense ministry as a whole, the figure is now 3200 (sovross.ru/news/48690).

·         At isolated construction sites in the Russian North, officials say that there are almost 2,000 workers who have been infected (thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and-public/2020/05/there-are-now-almost-2000-virus-infected-workers-russian-arctic-construction).

·         Experts say that the Putin administration will have to cancel or at least postpone until long into the future most if not all of its much-beloved national projects which the Kremlin has used to funnel tax money into the hands of its oligarch supporters (svpressa.ru/society/article/264515/).