The Shocking Enormity of Russia’s Botched Pandemic Responsehttps://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/05/russia-pandemic-response-failure-sputnik-vaccine-third-wave-covid-deaths-delta-variant-anti-vaxxers/MOSCOW—As I write this, Russia is firmly in the grip of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every day, there are about 22,000 reported new infections—twice as many as during the peak of the first wave in May 2020—and more than 600 deaths. The new Delta variant of the virus, which Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin says is responsible for 90 per cent of new infections in the Russian capital, has caught Russia almost completely unawares. Despite having access to the brain power and resources of one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, Russian authorities have repeatedly squandered almost every chance to beat the pandemic. Their massive, bloated propaganda apparatus failed to do the one job it was designed for: Get the message out. Instead, the pandemic has exacerbated the crisis of trust between the Russian government and citizens. ...
Russian independent observers and journalists—including me and my colleagues at Meduza—already knew something was terribly off with Russia’s handling of the pandemic in late spring of 2020. We had looked at the numbers and recognized that COVID-19 deaths were being underreported in many regions of Russia. According to the official statistics at the time, tens of thousands of Russians were dying in 2020 of a mysterious pneumonia epidemic unrelated to COVID-19. This was hardly plausible. The more likely explanation: Russian regional authorities were writing off the majority of COVID-19 cases as “community-acquired pneumonia.”
There is no evidence of a cover-up ordered from the top. More likely, regional governorates were simply being discreet to avoid being the bearer of bad news to the Kremlin. Underreporting COVID-19 cases in the early stages of the pandemic plausibly made many Russians question the existence of the virus or lulled them into a false sense of security, although there is no poll data to back this up. ...
The next time I felt a sense of foreboding was in early December 2020, when I called my local clinic during the start of the Sputnik V vaccine rollout. At the time, only certain categories of frontline workers were eligible. However, vaccine uptake was so slow that the clinic told me it didn’t matter that I wasn’t prioritized—and asked if I could turn up right now. And so I did, and became one of the first Russians vaccinated with Sputnik V. I was down with a flu-like fever and fatigue for a couple of days after each of the two required doses, but recovered without any complications. I am now protected against the virus with an impressive level of spike protein antibodies. ...
Astonishingly, six months later I am part of only a tiny minority of Russians who have chosen to be vaccinated—or managed to be, amid a chronic shortage of vaccine doses. Off to an early start with its own vaccine, Russia is now severely lagging behind. At the time of writing, about 12 per cent are fully vaccinated, while another 4.7 percent have received a single dose ...
It didn't take a genius, a year ago, to figure out that Russia's Covid data - cases and deaths - were thoroughly phonied up. I was one of those many non-geniuses. As with China, as with Iran, authoritarian regimes don't publicize disasters that might reflect poorly on the regime. BS data has consequences: some people believe and act on it, with unpleasant results; other recognize the data as BS and disbelieve everything that doesn't fit what they want to be true. Russia and China are not unique in that respect.
