At Current Rate, Russia Won’t Vaccinate Half the Population until a Year from Now, Watchdog Group Says

File Photo of Blue-Gloved Hand Holding Syringe and Injecting Arm, adapted from image at nih.gov

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Oct. 3, 2021) Despite Moscow’s claims about first-time vaccinations, the rate of full immunization is going up so slowly that Russia won’t have managed to vaccinate 50 percent of its population in less than a year from now, according to Viktor Kabanov, who is an analyst for the Watching COVID-2019 group (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/10/02/proizvodstvo-ne-sovsem-chistoe).

Covid-19 Coronavirus file photo, adapted from image at cdc.govThat means the pandemic will continue to rise and fall over that period and beyond because even with 50 percent vaccination, there are unlikely to be enough recovered victims of the coronavirus to give the Russian people herd immunity anytime soon; and that means more infections, more hospitalizations and more deaths well into 2022 and even 2023.

Today, Russian officials reported registering 24,522 new cases of infection and 887 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours as the pandemic continued to spread or intensify in many parts of the country (t.me/COVID2019_official/3615 and regnum.ru/news/society/3387415.html).

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

  • A senior Moscow doctor says that it is useless to make predictions about how the pandemic will proceed given all the unknowns including the possibility of new strains (regnum.ru/news/3387831.html).
  • Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Primorsky Kray, suggests reducing spending on the apparatus of the regional parliament and using the funds to support medical care (regnum.ru/news/3387669.html).
  • And as the pandemic grinds on, ever more commentators are comparing what is going on in Russia with what is happening in other countries. They conclude that death rates from the coronavirus correlate most closely with GDP, a measure on which Russia does not do well (iarex.ru/articles/82748.html).

[article also appeared at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/10/at-current-rate-russia-wont-vaccinate.html]


 

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