Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Pandemic's Fourth Wave Hitting Regions Harder than Capitals, Russian Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – Because more people have been vaccinated in the capitals and because a larger additional number have contracted the covid virus and recovered, Maksim Skulachev says, people in Moscow and St. Petersburg are not seeing the explosive growth in the number of new cases of infection that the regions are.

            Indeed, in many places beyond the ring road, the number of cases has surged, and officials have been taking ever-more draconian steps to try to get the situation under control (regnum.ru/news/society/3379238.html).

            The specialist on viral diseases says that the failure of more people to get vaccinated in the regions is the greatest reason for the recent rise in the number of cases of new infections and can be expected to continue for some time because of the return of young people to schools and universities (regnum.ru/news/3380941.html and ura.news/news/1052507344).

            Today, for the first time since mid-August, Russian officials said they had registered more than 22,000 new cases of infection (22,041) over the last 24 hours. They also reported 822 new deaths from the coronavirus during that period (t.me/COVID2019_official/3593 and novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/09/25/vpervye-s-serediny-avgusta-v-rossii-vyiavili-bolee-22-tysiach-sluchaev-sovid-19-za-sutki-news).

            Russian medical experts said they expect the delta variant to remain the dominant one during the fourth wave (ura.news/news/1052507377); and hospitals, hard pressed because of rising demand and a shortage of staff, played up the positive role of volunteers who have come to help nurses and doctors treat the infected and dying (kommersant.ru/doc/5005756).

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