JRL NEWSWATCH: “Surreal scenes inside Russia’s battle against the pandemic” – National Geographic/ Nanna Heitmann

“Patients continue to fill hospitals as rumours and cynicism spread about a vaccine.”

“… [A]ll these [Moscow] hospitals [are now COVID-19 centres,] devoted to one disease that didn’t exist … months ago[] … shocking inside the hospitals. From the moment you’re in the elevator you’re in a ‘red zone’ … considered contaminated[,] [e]verywhere … a red zone[,] … nurses prepar[ing] COVID medicines, infusions, and antibiotics, and rush[ing] back …. In the ICU almost no one … conscious … a huge floor[,] … [with] all the [elderly] look[ing] more dead than alive. There’s this awkward silence. You see bodies not moving …. Some … turn a strange colour. … like porcelain. … [T]he government has announced this Russian COVID-19 vaccine …. For some months … [the government has been] saying how well [the vaccine] was progressing … [with] rumors … [of] important people … already … vaccinated. On the state-owned channel it’s a big story[:] … how good the vaccine will be for … financial markets, that it’s safe, that … Putin’s daughter received it … that there’s nothing to worry about. On Russian Twitter[, there is] … a lot more cynicism and sarcasm. … A former statesman and Central Bank chairman said Putin is willing to experiment with the entire Russian population … to protect himself politically. …”

Click here for: “Surreal scenes inside Russia’s battle against the pandemic; Patients continue to fill hospitals as rumours and cynicism spread about a vaccine [with photographs]” – National Geographic/ Nanna Heitmann