Vaccinations in Russian Military Rise as Increase Stalls in Many Cities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 15 – The Russian defense ministry says that as of now, “more than 600,000” uniformed personnel have been vaccinated, a significant increase over the last two weeks (regnum.ru/news/3244511.html). But the Kremlin says that demand for the vaccine among civilians is currently not very high (regnum.ru/news/3244046.html).

            In Moscow, where the vaccination effort started earlier and with more push from the authorities, still fewer than ten percent of the population has been vaccinated, with rates especially low among younger residents (echo.msk.ru/blog/ssobyanin/2822128-echo/).

            Some officials are trying to make themselves look good by forcing lower-ranking bureaucrats to get the vaccine at pain of losing their jobs. That reportedly is happening in Chechnya (capost.media/news/obshchestvo/byudzhetniki-v-chechne-zhaluyutsya-na-prinuzhdenie-k-vaktsinatsii/).

            Some Russians are deciding not to get the shots now because of reports of deaths among some who have been vaccinated in St. Petersburg (regnum.ru/news/3244141.html).

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 8792 new cases of infection and 400 new deaths over the last 24 hours. The latter figure brings the cumulative death total to just under 100,000 as the pandemic continues to ebb and flow across the Russian Federation (t.me/COVID2019_official/2710 and regnum.ru/news/society/3241939.html).

            Moscow upped its estimate of the number of Russians trapped in Turkey because of the suspension of flights between the two countries from 30,000 to 50,000 (regnum.ru/news/3244358.html). The Russian government also extended the suspension of flights to and from the UK until June 1 (regnum.ru/news/3244343.html).

            On the vaccine front, Patriarch Kirill announced he has been vaccinated (meduza.io/feature/2021/04/15/patriarh-kirill-privilsya-ot-kovida-rpts-ne-soobschaet-kakoy-imenno-vaktsinoy-meduza-vyyasnila-chto-skoree-vsego-eto-byl-ne-sputnik-v). And St. Petersburg officials are now taking vaccines to the homebound (regnum.ru/news/3244047.html).

            On the economic front, even though infections in Russian-occupied Crimea have recently doubled, demand for reservations at resorts there continues to rise (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/04/15/v-ozhidanii-pribyli).

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

·         Seventy percent of Russians who have recovered from covid infections are too tired to resume working, the Academy of Sciences says (echo.msk.ru/news/2822296-echo.html).

·         Fifty-six percent of Russians say they are not afraid of being infected by the coronavirus, according to a Superjob poll  (echo.msk.ru/news/2822264-echo.html).

·         The Moscow city government is spending 41 million rubles (60,000 US dollars) on buttons and badges to give to those who fought the pandemic (trtrussian.com/novosti-rossiya/vlasti-moskvy-potratyat-41-mln-rublej-na-znachki-za-borbu-s-covid-19-5155041).