Vaccine skepticism is particularly widespread in Russia.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin While the pandemic is slowly losing its horror in many European countries, the situation in Russia is spiraling out of control. The number of infected and Covid deaths is constantly reaching new highs, the largest country in the world with almost 32,000 new infections and almost 1,000 corona deaths every day is now even above the record highs of last winter.
Now vaccination compulsory, bonuses and other drastic measures are supposed to curb the increase. Over 65-year-olds now receive a bonus of 10,000 rubles (the equivalent of a good 120 euros) if they get vaccinated.
How serious the crisis is now is shown by the rising prices for coffins and grave crosses: The cost of a coffin has skyrocketed by 30 to 60 percent, reports the head of the funeral home “Schurawly”, Ilya Boltunow.
Officially, the price increase is justified with more expensive wood and metal procurement. Moscow media also point out, however, that the entire funeral sector is organized monopoly and interwoven with public servants through corruption.
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The real reason for the price explosion is the great demand for coffins because of the dramatic excess mortality: tens of thousands of corona deaths were not officially registered as “died with Covid-19”; their death certificates were issued for secondary diseases such as pneumonia.
Significant excess mortality
In 2020 alone, Russia reported only 57,600 corona deaths, which was 0.04 percent of the population. That was well below the numbers of the countries severely affected by the pandemic, Spain and the USA (0.11 percent each).
But the total number of deceased in Russia in 2020 was so significantly higher than in previous years that experts are assuming a corona-related excess mortality of 264,000.
The only positive thing at the moment is that many Russians apparently took advantage of lockdowns in the previous year: The number of births in the capital Moscow has risen noticeably since May – it is 148 percent above the rate of the previous year.
According to experts, the cause of the strong increase in the number of infected people and deaths is still the lack of willingness to vaccinate many citizens: Although Russia already approved “Sputnik V” in August 2020, allegedly the world’s first corona vaccine, it has just continued to this day 31 percent of people have a complete vaccination once and a good three percent with a first dose.
Planned mandatory vaccination
On a global average, these numbers are 35 and twelve percent, in Germany 68.8 percent of the population is vaccinated at least once. By the summer, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin had announced a vaccination quota of 60 percent. He had advertised his own vaccination on television.
When Putin was seen coughing heavily in his environment at the beginning of the week after several weeks of self-isolation due to numerous corona cases, the Russian President defended himself: “It was just cool in the air, I moved more actively, it is nothing bad,” Putin said in one Video conference shown on state television on Monday evening.
“Don’t worry, everything is fine,” he told the chairman of the Russian Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, who was concerned about the coughing president.
A compulsory vaccination and a renewed ban on mass events should help against the ever increasing numbers of infections and deaths. Of the 85 Russian regions, only 18 have not yet issued mandatory vaccinations for civil servants, shop assistants, bank employees and other people with customer contact.
More: The Putin system is reaching its limits – politically and economically.