Russia is in the midst of its third and most severe wave of covid-19, with more people dying daily than at any point during the pandemic
In fact, by the time Mr Putin was addressing his powwow, Russian doctors had for several weeks been registering an alarming rise in infections and deaths. A month later, Russia is in the midst of its third and most severe wave of covid-19, with more people dying daily than at any point during the pandemic .
All of this could have been avoided. A year ago the government decided to lift a partial lockdown , hoping to save itself money and to prop up the president’s faltering popularity after a prolonged slump in incomes. Mr Putin’s ratings did go back up—but so did the risk of infection. This was just when people should have been urged to get vaccinated, says Denis Volkov of the Levada Centre, an independent pollster. Despite the staggering true number of deaths, in February his polling found that 57% of people were not worried about catching the virus. Most worryingly, two-thirds of the country rejected the idea of getting vaccinated.
Sputnik V was authorised before the results of its phase-3 clinical trials were ready. Once these were published, questions were raised about some inconsistencies and data availability, says Boris Reizis, a professor of immunology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. Still, he says, the data suggest that Sputnik V is at least as safe and effective as other adenovirus-based vaccines, such as those made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. But the damage had been done.
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