Moscow Gets Vaccine Even as Pandemic Rages in More than a Third of Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 5 – The first coronavirus vaccine has already arrived in Moscow clinics, where the pandemic has eased, but are not yet going to the 30 regions of the Russian Federation where the health ministry admits the coronavirus is still spreading at dangerous rates (regnum.ru/news/3055053.html, kp.ru/daily/217178.5/4282299/, regnum.ru/news/3054950.html,  regnum.ru/news/3054742.html and regnum.ru/news/society/3051649.html).

            Vladimir Putin for his part issued a statement on how well Moscow has done in coping with the coronavirus pandemic, ignoring as he typically has how badly other parts of the Russian Federation have done and are still doing (https://www.kp.ru/online/news/4002918/).

            Officials and experts continue to debate how safe and effective the Russian vaccine is with the former insisting it is both and the latter raising questions given that the third phase of testing usually required of vaccines is far from being completed (rusmonitor.com/nasha-vakczina-rabotaet-i-bezopasna-govorit-kreml-eksperty-emu-ne-doveryayut.html).

            The Russian government reported that there had been 5205 new cases of infection and 110 new deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the respective totals to 1,020,310 and 17,759 (t.me/stopcoronavirusrussia/1880). Because the overall infection rate has ticked up and because the total has pass one million, more Russians are worried (znak.com/2020-09-05/chislo_sluchaev_koronavirusa_v_rossii_prevysilo_1_mln).

            On the economic front, scholars at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics said that the purchasing power of Russians for basic goods declined in the second quarter of this year to the lowest level at any point in the last decade (kp.ru/daily/217178.5/4282336/ and ru/www.hse.ru/pubs/share/direct/document/396419218.pdf).

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

·         Novosibirsk prosecutors are requiring hospitals to provide detailed information on all those who do not arrange to have vaccines for their children (tayga.info/159042).

·         Russians purchased 50 percent more antiseptics in August 2020 than they did in the same month in 2019 (regnum.ru/news/3054797.html).

·         Three schools – two which are numbered “13” – have had to go into quarantine because of coronavirus infections among pupils (mk.ru/social/2020/09/04/v-shkole-nashli-koronavirus-opisany-pervye-sluchai-karantina.html).