Paul Goble
Staunton, December 1 – The majority of Russians may never see their standard of living recover to what it was before the pandemic, commentator Dmitry Milin says, summarizing new comments by economists (rosbalt.ru/posts/2020/12/01/1875730.html and znak.com/2020-12-01/mesto_rf_v_mirovoy_ekonomike_kak_my_prozhili_kovidnyy_god_i_pochemu_dalshe_budet_huzhe).
Small businesses will require a decade or more to recover if they ever do, and the Russian economy as a whole will be increasingly dominated by the government and acquire many of the aspects of the Soviet period of stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s, a true “catastrophe” for the country, Milin and other experts say.
Today, Russian officials announced that the country had set a new record for daily deaths – 569 – although the number of new cases of infection fell slightly to 26.402, bringing these totals respectively to 40,464 and 2,322,056 (t.me/COVID2019_official/20880). More closings were announced than re-openings (regnum.ru/news/society/3128044.html).
Moscow announced that the situation had stabilized in 58 regions, deteriorated in 24, but slowed in only three. In a more hopeful development, t coefficient of spread, however, fell in a total of 62 (eastrussia.ru/news/rospotrebnadzor-otmetil-zamedlenie-rosta-zabolevaemosti-koronavirusom/).
According to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the situations in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad Oblast given shortages of hospital beds are the greatest concern (echo.msk.ru/news/2750828-echo.html). He called for governments in all places where the situation is dire to take more extreme measures (regnum.ru/news/3129877.htm) and warned against any massive public activities (regnum.ru/news/3129939.html).
While the situation in Moscow city has stabilized at a high plateau, that in neighboring Moscow Oblast continues to deteriorate, sparking worries that problems there will spread back into the city proper (newizv.ru/news/society/01-12-2020/opasnoe-sosedstvo-zhiteli-moskovskoy-oblasti-vystupili-protiv-kovidnyh-gospitaley).
The prime minister says that the government’s plan for vaccinations will be ready by December 15 (regnum.ru/news/3129891.html), even as experts admit there won’t be enough vaccine available to meet all needs anytime soon, although some of them say that those who have been infected may be immune and not need the medicine (profile.ru/society/putevka-v-zhizn-kogo-spaset-massovaya-vakcinaciya-ot-covid-19-439311/).
Economic news continued to be bad: the economy as a whole entered into a new period of decline and is unlikely to see an upturn even from the new bottom before next year (ng.ru/economics/2020-12-01/1_8028_economics1.html), and credit reports showed that Russians are now falling behind on the automobile loans (regnum.ru/news/3129348.html).
Meanwhile, in other pandemic-related developments in Russia today,
· Officials acknowledged that Irina Antonova, the beloved head of the Pushkin Museum, had died from the coronavirus (regnum.ru/news/3129734.html).
· The Russian Orthodox Church continues to lose clergy to the coronavirus but nonetheless is keeping its churches open and services on schedule (ng.ru/ng_religii/2020-12-01/11_498_covid.html and ahilla.ru/kak-minimum-24-klirika-rpts-skonchalis-ot-kovida-v-noyabre/).
· On World AIDS Day, Russian activists are asking why Russians have come together to fight the coronavirus but not to deal with HIV/AIDS (idelreal.org/a/30976239.html).
· People in Kursk, seeing how overloaded doctors now are, have volunteered to help with various tasks to free the medical staff to focus on their primary tasks (7x7-journal.ru/articles/2020/12/01/ya-vizhu-kak-tyazhelo-vracham-kak-voditeli-volontery-v-kurske-pomogayut-vo-vremya-pandemii-vozit-medikov-k-pacientam).
· Many regions are reporting shortages of medicine and staff, and in some places, victims who have been hospitalized are committing suicide in despair (zona.media/article/2020/12/01/khakassia and agoniya.eu/archives/10102).
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