COVID-19 pandemic in Russia

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Federal subjects after confirmed infections per 10,000 population.
Construction of a hospital for COVID-19 patients near Moscow at the end of March 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic reached Russia in January 2020 as part of the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in China in December 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic affects the novel disease COVID-19 . This is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the Coronaviridae group and belongs to the group of respiratory diseases . On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the outbreak of the novel coronavirus as a global pandemic .

statistics

The number of cases developed during the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia as follows:

Infections and recoveries

Confirmed infections (cumulative) in Russia
(until August 16, 2020) according to WHO data

Confirmed infections (cumulative) in Russia over the course of the week
according to
WHO data

Confirmed infections (new cases) in Russia

New infections per calendar week in Russia
according to
WHO data

Deaths

Confirmed deaths (cumulative) in Russia
(April 16 to August 16, 2020) according to
WHO data

Confirmed deaths (cumulative) in Russia over the course of the week
according to
WHO data

Confirmed Deaths (Daily) in Russia

Confirmed deaths per calendar week in Russia
according to
WHO data

Number of tests performed

Number of tests performed (daily) in Russia

Total number of tests performed in Russia

The number of tests carried out for the novel coronavirus in Russia was 1,500,000 by April 15, 2020. By April 20, this number exceeded 2,000,000 (second place in the world after the USA with around 3,800,000 tests up to April 20). When the tests were carried out intensively, the test time around May 3 only showed around 50 percent of the 10,000 positive symptoms of the disease tested.

Reliability of statistics

The credibility of the exceptionally low number of deaths in official Russian statistics compared to other countries is the subject of discussion. In contrast to many other countries, those who died in Russia are only counted as COVID-19 deaths if an autopsy has proven that COVID-19 was the cause of the death. On the other hand, data from some large cities show a clear excess mortality . For example, 6,427 people died in Saint Petersburg in May 2020. That is around 1,400 more deaths than the average for the past decade in May; the number is also higher than in any single May of the past decade. At the same time, death statistics show many cases of pneumonia as the cause of death, many of which are likely due to COVID-19. For example, there were only 63 official deaths from COVID-19 in Saint Petersburg by mid-May, but 694 people who had died of pneumonia. Russia clearly denies allegations of manipulation.

In particular, the allegations by the Financial Times and The New York Times caught the attention of the Russian authorities. The two international newspapers compared the mortality with the same month last year and came up with values ​​that should be between 60 and 70 percent higher than the official figures. According to the Russian authorities, every suspicion of COVID-19 is autopsied and a decision is made as to whether the death was due to the virus or to other diseases. But even if excess mortality is taken into account in relation to the same month of the previous year, the corona mortality in Russia is clearly lower than in similarly severely affected countries.

Course and measures

Course and reactions in Russia

The first COVID-19 cases were reported in Russia on January 31, 2020. Initial preventive measures included closing the border with China and running tests for the virus. After the virus continued to spread, most events in the country were canceled from mid-March 2020 and universities, theaters and museums were closed, after the mayor of Moscow went ahead. The metropolis of Moscow is hardest hit. There have been strict exit restrictions there since almost the beginning of April. From then on, Moscow citizens could only go to work with a special permit. After controls in the metro, which at times led to dense crowds, the city was accused of having exposed thousands of people to the risk of infection. The control system was then changed. Measures taken by the RZD during the COVID-19 pandemic were presented in a call by the RZD to its passengers.

In the Krasnoyarsk region , the governor had already closed the schools on March 17; The area affected by air pollution has a particularly high number of people with respiratory diseases.

112,000 people were quarantined on March 25, when the number of infected people was given as 658. On March 28, the fifth resident of Russia died of COVID-19. It was the first death outside of Moscow, where 70 percent of all 1,264 people who tested positive were at that time.

The declaration of a week off by President Putin at the end of March led to a wave of travel to holiday resorts instead of self-isolation; this week was extended three days later to one month until the end of April. Employees should therefore receive their full wages, but it was rather feared that small and medium-sized enterprises would die. At the end of April, the time until May 11, which in Russia mainly consists of Fridays, was also declared as non-working.

In the city of Moscow, from March 30, all citizens, with a few exceptions from certain professional groups, were called upon to stay in their apartments or to go out with their dog a maximum of 100 meters. President Putin had withdrawn to the Novo-Ogaryovo estate .

A non-binding vote planned for April 22, 2020 on a constitutional amendment already initiated by Russian President Putin has been postponed.

For violations of the exit regulations, the Duma approved sentences of up to seven years in prison for a person responsible for a death by breaking the quarantine by an infected person. On April 1, 2020, the Russian “fake news” law was tightened, which allowed heavy penalties for disseminating “false information about the pandemic and government measures”. The BBC, however, reported that the state media were spreading fake news.

As of April 15, a digital permit was required for travel by all means of transport in Moscow and Moscow Oblast . In mid-April, the Victory Day parade was canceled on May 9, at the public request of veterans' associations to President Putin's address - that the Kremlin should be publicly asked for sensitive decisions is a practice practiced in Russia. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, several heads of state had already canceled their participation. In the last week of May, Putin ordered to catch up on the Victory Parade on June 24, 2020; rehearsals were due to begin on June 8th.

With the Altai Republic , COVID-19 reached all subjects of the Federation on April 16. At that time, more than 27,000 people in Russia were considered sick (plus unknown number of unreported cases).

In the absence of sufficient staff, medical students have been helping out full-time in the clinics in major Russian cities since the outbreak of the pandemic.

On May 10, Russia reported more than 200,000 infected people and 1,915 dead. Twenty days later, there were almost 400,000 infected, 4,555 dead and more than 8,000 new cases every day. In mid-June, 500,000 infections were counted, at the end of June over 600,000, at the beginning of July 700,000 and at the end of July 2020 over 800,000. More than 550,000 infected people were considered recovered at the end of July 2020, which meant several hundred thousand active cases at the same time. The number of deaths, which exceeded 10,000 on July 3, 2020, was given as 14,000 at the end of July, but is controversial due to a noticeable increase in deaths from pneumonia.

On August 1, 2020, Health Minister Mikhail Muraschko announced that the COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the State Gamaleja Institute for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow since May 2020, had completed its testing and had no negative side effects. The vaccination of the Russian population should therefore start at the beginning of October 2020. Since details were not published, an independent assessment could not be carried out at first. In addition, Muraschko announced that a second vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be clinically tested.

The regions

Nationally and internationally it has been observed that the otherwise strict vertical of power in Russia has been suspended; President Putin did not take the lead, but delegated the decisions to the governors, who had hardly any resources or powers; three governors resigned immediately. Governors with a direct line to the president have remained noticeably passive, most regions followed the measures ordered by Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin .

In the Chechen Republic, the head of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov compared corona sufferers with "terrorists". People feared reporting to the authorities after the disease came into the country through pilgrims from Saudi Arabia. When a report in the Novaya Gazeta said that it was better to die from coronavirus than from state repression, the magazine was forced to remove the article.

Russian Orthodox Church

The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church , Kyrill I , said on March 22nd that the virus was helping people to understand that human civilization was in a major crisis, "which is associated with self-confidence and pride," which is also true Could be interpreted as a “just punishment”. Such and other pronouncements that “infection is powerless against God's grace” led many priests to refuse to take action to protect believers. The authorities were extremely cautious about the ROK, "while individuals demonstrating for human rights with reference to the Corona rules were arrested," according to one comment. On Palm Sunday the people had literally "stormed" the churches. During Easter there were 7 regions in which there were no restrictions on attending church services, in 44 regions there were restrictions, while the Moscow authorities as well as those in Saint Petersburg prohibited entering the churches. The services were broadcast on the Internet. It is known that the Russian state and the church had entered into a "symbiosis" (theologically: symphonia ) in recent years , which was severely tested in the Corona crisis.

On April 21, the 48-year-old archpriest Alexander Ageykin, previously rector of Moscow's Epiphany Cathedral in Jelochowo , died for the first time as a high dignitary; Protodeacon Yevgeny Trofimov, a clergyman of the cathedral, died on April 25. The first security measures had been ordered beforehand. On April 11, the Patriarchate of Moscow and all of Russia ordered the Moscow region to hold services without parishioners. On April 26 of the first Russian Orthodox bishop, the 54-year-old Veniamin (Korolow) of died Zheleznogorsk and lgov . Only the deaths led to a further tightening of the measures that Cyril I had announced on May 5th. The previously open churches were closed and penalties were threatened if they were ignored. In Sergiev Posad's Trinity Monastery alone , 37 monks are said to be infected. Other reports speak of 52 infected people from the Moscow Theological Academy located there . A dozen cases have been reported from Chelyabinsk , including Metropolitan Grigory himself, who on April 29 ordered the closure of the churches in his eparchy.

At the beginning of May 2020 it became known that the consecration of the new main church of the armed forces of Russia ("Church of Victory") will be postponed due to the current crisis. The prestige object is the third largest cathedral in Russia and was to be opened on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the victory over the German Empire in World War II. The consecration was made up on June 14, 2020 despite the continued high number of infections (over 7,000 new cases per day). Most of those present did not wear mouth and nose protection. ref> The Russian Orthodox Church told how Archpriest Alexander Ageykin contracted COVID-19. Corona 24 News, April 25, 2020, accessed on May 19, 2020 (English).

International cooperation

On February 8, 2020, when there was a lack of virus control in China, an Ilyushin Il-76 with 23 tons of cargo (including 2 million respirators, protective suits, drugs and test systems) took off for China. In March 2020, Russia dispatched both medical personnel and equipment to Italy and announced deliveries for Serbia . By April 4, eleven Il-76 aircraft with relief supplies had taken off for Serbia. Belarus, North Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan also received help from Russia, in particular test systems, to detect the virus.

On April 1, a Russian military aircraft An-124 with medical equipment and protective masks for the pandemic landed in New York in the United States after Russian President Putin and US President Donald Trump made calls. The medical equipment also included ventilators from the Russian company KRET , which belongs to the state-owned Rostec company and which US companies were prohibited from doing business with due to sanctions imposed . Half of the delivery was paid for by Russia, the other half by the US.

A plane from Uzbekistan brought five million protective masks to Moscow in mid-April. At the beginning of April, 26 tons of material had already arrived from China.

gallery

Criticism and controversy

The small number of infections reported by Russia was doubted by foreign media at the end of March 2020, primarily due to the size of the country, regardless of the fact that local officials themselves stated that the actual cases of infection were probably not fully reported. A doctor critical of the government said that Moscow's hospitals were full of people with pneumonia who had not been tested for corona. She was later arrested by the police for violating the exit rules when she brought protective equipment to a regional hospital. In individual cases, it was known at the beginning that the cause of death had been given as the previous illness, which was considered a corona death abroad.

Experts also criticized the measure taken by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, who sent citizens on vacation for a month with continued wages at the beginning of the virus spread. This would have done more harm than good in containing the virus, because many people would still be traveling.

Due to the closure of the borders with many other European countries, an otherwise frequently used option for treatment abroad no longer existed, some of the Russian upper class tried to operate private medical care and with more or less success to buy individual ventilators and medical staff win.

Doctors criticizing the circumstances fell out of the windows of their respective hospitals shortly thereafter in at least three cases between April 24 and May 2, 2020. In addition, there were further arrests for spreading alleged false reports.

See also

Web links

Commons : COVID-19 Pandemic in Russia  - Pictures, Videos and Audio Files Collection

Individual evidence

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