Russian Vaccine Unlikely to Magically End Pandemic Overnight, Medical Expert and United Russia Deputy Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 4 – Russian government celebration of positive tests of a vaccine against the coronavirus led many to conclude that this would be a magic bullet that will end the pandemic overnight, but now both medical experts and politician are cautioning that even a good vaccine won’t do that.

            Instead, Pavel Shumikhin, a medical specialist who is also a United Russia deputy in the Altai Kray legislative assembly, says it will take some time to end the pandemic even with a vaccine and that no one should relax anytime soon on the basis of the mistaken assumption that a vaccine will solver everything (regnum.ru/news/3027459.html).

            The World Health Organization noted today that Moscow had not yet sent in information about its vaccine and expressed the hope that in preparing it, the Russian authorities would follow international guidelines, possible indications of problems (regnum.ru/news/3028341.html and regnum.ru/news/3028268.html).

            Russian officials have said that the vaccine developed there is not yet approved for the use of children, something that could extend the time frame for ending the pandemic further, although they announced that they are preparing to engage in clinical tries of the vaccine on children (regnum.ru/news/3027444.html and regnum.ru/news/3027924.html).

            Today, Moscow released two sets of figures, one for the population as a whole and a second for those in penal institutions. As far as the first is concerned, there were 5199 new infections registered, bringing that total to 861,423; and 144 more deaths, upping that toll to 14,351 (t.me/COVID2019_official/1186).

            Russia’s penal agency said cases of coronavirus infection had been found among 1224 prisoners and 3526 jailors and that 933 of these two groups had been cured. This pattern almost certainly reflects the fact that guards are more likely to be tested and treated than inmates (https://tass.ru/obschestvo/9115907).

            Meanwhile, in yet another report that casts doubt on official numbers during the pandemic, Kaliningrad residents say that officials there are reporting coronavirus numbers without doing any testing, a report that if true means the officials are simply making up numbers on the basis of what they think the center wants to hear (severreal.org/a/30764532.html).

            The pandemic continues to ebb and flow across the Russian Federation, with openings and re-closings generally tracking these trends (regnum.ru/news/society/3021975.html). Regions with spikes now are delaying or thinking about delaying the reopening of schools (regnum.ru/news/3027610.html).

            Moscow is now arranging for Russian citizens trapped in 20 additional countries abroad because of the disruption in air transport to return to Russia over the course of August (regnum.ru/news/3027620.html). And operators of movie theaters are struggling with restrictions, requiring masks but not checking them inside (regnum.ru/news/3028304.html).

            Economic news continued to be bad. Unemployment is officially 3.7 times higher than it was a year ago, and likely double that, independent experts say (ehorussia.com/new/node/21350). Business income is down sharply as well, and almost two-thirds of business people say they can’t use the tax benefits promised (rbc.ru/economics/03/08/2020/5f23d56a9a7947c85ff90bb6 and krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/78788).

            More than 15 percent of Russian restaurants closed during the height of the pandemic won’t reopen, but in the last week, the number of Russians going to restaurants rose by 5.1 percent (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/78785). And while stores have reopened, more than half of Russians continue to purchase goods of first necessity online (regnum.ru/news/3028139.html).

            The finance ministry is allocating more money for the Kremlin and apparently for the defense ministry which has just boosted salaries for several categories of uniformed personnel but not for the regions which desperately need help (sobkorr.org/news/5F294E6251ECB.html and  ehorussia.com/new/node/21350).

            On the political front, Sergey Mironov, head of Just Russia in the Duma, expressed regret that the government had rejected his proposal to deport immigrant workers in order to protect Russians from the virus (regnum.ru/news/3027699.html), and commentators say the Kremlin may introduce a new pandemic lockdown if protests continue (ej.ru/?a=note&id=35257).

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

·         The health ministry said that the upcoming flu season will be complicated by the appearance of four new strains of that virus (interfax.ru/russia/720249).

·         Demand for gloves and antiseptics have fallen (regnum.ru/news/3027572.html).

·         More than a third of the leaks worldwide of personal data related to the pandemic have occurred in Russia (znak.com/2020-08-04/bolee_treti_vseh_utechek_personalnyh_dannyh_po_covid_19_proizoshlo_v_rossii).