Sobyanin Says No Leader Coping with Covid Can Please Everyone

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 2 – Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin says that the pandemic has had less of an impact on the economy than on the feelings of people and that as a result, it is impossible for anyone in charge to please everybody. Instead, some will always want a more draconian approach; and others, a more laissez faire one (business-gazeta.ru/article/517772

“Whatever you do, you will always be wrong,” the mayor of Russia’s capital says. Just how nasty the criticism can be is shown by a comment from Dmitry Aleksandrov who says that “Muscovites are suffering from Sobyanin’s own covid terror” (rusmonitor.com/moskva-neset-mnogomilliardnye-poteri-iz-za-covid-19.html).

Today, Russian officials reported that they had registered 23,508 new cases of infection and 785 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, with many regions now being forced to tighten restrictions given deterioration in epidemiological conditions (t.me/COVID2019_official/3398 and regnum.ru/news/3334487.html).

This trend is worrisome but perhaps of greater concern is that leaders of Russian federal subjects are increasingly looking the other way and allowing people and businesses to violate the orders they themselves have issued. Among those in fact is Mayor Sobyanin (regnum.ru/news/3334589.html and regnum.ru/news/3334616.html).

And another disturbing development is that Moscow has ended the fines it earlier imposed on hospitals who allowed patients to provide their own medicine. As a result, it is likely that patients will have to find and pay for drugs rather than be able to count on the medical system to provide them (rosbalt.ru/moscow/2021/08/02/1914153.html).

Moscow is currently scrambling to supply enough vaccine, medicines and oxygen to the regions, with some complaining of shortages and others trying to find ways to begin to manufacture some of these thing son their own (regnum.ru/news/3334546.html and regnum.ru/news/3335297.html).

But even as many areas of the Russian Federation are struggling in this regard, Moscow city has sufficient reserves that it has begun vaccinating young people and has announced pupils will return to face-to-face education later this month for the fall term rather than face distance learning which could be the fate of many elsewhere (idelreal.org/a/31384127.html).