Russian and Chinese Hackers Steal Coronavirus Data from EU Agency

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 7 – The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant reports that hackers from Russia and China have broken into the computers of the European Agency for Medicines and stolen information on the vaccines the EU has been developing, testing and using (nv.ua/world/countries/hakerskie-ataki-rf-rossiya-i-kitay-ukrali-dannye-o-vakcinah-no-otricayut-eto-poslednie-novosti-50146258.html).

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 10,595 new cases of coronavirus infection and 368 additional deaths from the pandemic, as the disease continued to ebb and flow across the country (t.me/COVID2019_official/2561 and regnum.ru/news/society/3202625.html). Some places like St. Petersburg reported they were now plateauing at a high level (regnum.ru/news/3208878.html and.regnum.ru/news/3208725.html).

            Epidemiologists are now projecting that infections and deaths will decline over the next few weeks but that these numbers will go up, possibly dramatically later in the spring (regnum.ru/news/3208708.html).

            A Saratov researcher reports that deaths from the coronavirus are higher in his city than anywhere else in Russia, with the real figures being 16 times the official ones, far above the all-Russian differential of 6.3 times (idelreal.org/a/31109770.html).

            On the vaccine front, Aleksey Venediktov, editor of Ekho Moskvy, said that Vladimir Putin will get the vaccine when his doctors say that it is all right, thereby providing an explanation for why the Russian president has not done what he has been urging other Russians to do (ura.news/news/1052474817).

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

·         A specialist on travel says that the world is never going to go back to the free and easy approach to moving about the planet that existed before the pandemic (vtimes.io/2021/03/07/kovid-protiv-turizma-a3593).

·         Beginning next academic year, Russian universities will allow students to take examinations online if the students first put biometric data on file (rbc.ru/society/07/03/2021/6044a5ff9a7947abb6a642b4).

·         Moscow is intensifying political divisions in Moldova by its efforts to promote its Sputnik-5 vaccine against medicines from the West, observers say (iarex.ru/articles/79978.html).