Loosening Restrictions in Russia Now Threatens to Reignite Pandemic, Disease Specialist Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, July 8 – Vladimir Chulpanov, a Moscow specialist on infectious diseases, says that Russia is relaxing too quickly the restrictions officials had put in place to combat the pandemic and that as a result, new cases of the coronavirus are likely to rise as people come from regions where the rates are still high to others (vz.ru/society/2020/7/8/1048738.html).

Over the last 24 hours, there were officially registered 6562 new cases of infection, bringing the cumulative total to 700,792,  and 173 more deaths bringing that total to 10,667 (t.me/COVID2019_official/986). New details and more bases for skepticism about these figures both emerged as well.

The health ministry reported that there are currently 112,000 coronavirus victims in hospital beds, a figure the ministry has been chary about releasing earlier because it points to the severity of the disease and the likelihood that a significant portion of these people will in fact die (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/koronavirus-v-rossii-xronika/).

Duma leaders announced that the number of deputies infected has risen by three to 35 (tass.ru/obschestvo/8912031), and the defense ministry reports that more than 7100 uniformed personnel in addition to ministry civilians have been infected (vestikavkaza.ru/news/bolee-71-tys-rossijskih-voennyh-vylecilis-ot-koronavirusa.html).

At the same time, patients in St. Petersburg complained that doctors would not tell those who lost relatives what they had died from (severreal.org/a/30714092.html), and officials in Voronezh found that many people there are being buried without their deaths being registered (interfax.ru/russia/716451). These are two ways in which the official numbers are being falsified.  

Openings and closings continued across the country. Moscow Oblast followed Moscow city in lifting or promising to lift later this month most restrictions it had imposed on residents (mosreg.ru/download/document/1071542 and tass.ru/moskovskaya-oblast/8914971). And Chechen officials lifted restrictions against large weddings (capost.media/news/obshchestvo/in-chechnya-kadyrov-is-allowed-to-celebrate-the-wedding-in-the-banquet-halls/).

But federal officials said that they would not allow the traditional school opening lineups in September because of the epidemiological situation (tass.ru/obschestvo/8914803), and both Russian Orthodox and Muslim officials in places re-imposed restrictions at religious ceremonies (ahilla.ru/v-buzuluke-na-karantin-iz-za-kovida-zakryt-kafedralnyj-sobor/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/351684/).

And most dramatically, Russian counter-terrorism officials announced they were postponing an international exercise on the Caspian until next year because of the pandemic and the dangers of the new spread of infections among participants (casp-geo.ru/ucheniya-kaspij-antiterror-2020-pereneseny-rukovoditel-atts-sng-novikov/).

The economic news from Russia today was uniformly bad. Economist Igor Nikolayev says the Russian government has acted as if the coronavirus is over and thus made mistakes about the economy that have made recovery far more problematic (mk.ru/economics/2020/07/07/koronavirusnyy-krizis-pravilno-li-lechat-rossiyskuyu-ekonomiku.html).

The economic crisis has impoverished most of the population and increased the share of truly poor Russians, those living on less than 5,000 rubles (75 US dollars) a month up from 6.9 percent in February to 8.1 percent now (agoniya.eu/archives/6681). The state has agreed to continue to pay supplements to unemployment compensation until the end of the summer (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/78018).

During the first six months of 2020, the number of personal bankruptcies in Russia rose by 47 percent (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/78002); and experts projected that Russia would export less oil in Juliy than it has in any month since 2002 (argusmedia.com/ru/news/2120984-отгрузки-юралс-на-историческом-минимуме).

A new study found that 50 percent of all migrants in Russia have lost work since the start of the pandemic (nazaccent.ru/content/33564-iz-za-pandemii-bolee-50-migrantov-v.html), with that figure being 74 percent in the city of Moscow (stanradar.com/news/full/40318-opros-vo-vremja-pandemii-74-migrantov-poterjali-rabotu-v-moskve.html).

Most have no resources but cannot return home. However, the study concluded, they have not led to the spike in crime many expected. In May the interior ministry reported that the number of crimes in Russia committed by foreigners had in fact fallen by 10.9 percent compared to a year earlier and the number of murders by 20 percent.