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As a teacher in a large school in the southern suburbs of Moscow, Nina Zhukova should have been one of the first to receive the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine offered to priority workers throughout the Russian capital.
Instead, having contracted and recovered the virus in the fall, Zhukova is determined not to get vaccinated.
“I would not get vaccinated even if I had not had Covid,” he told the Moscow Times.
“I’m just not a big believer in Russian medicine.”
Zhukova is not alone in her skepticism towards Russia’s coronavirus campaign. Although Sputnik V, the world’s first coronavirus vaccine to receive regulatory approval, has demonstrated an impressive 91.2% efficacy, widespread public mistrust of the vaccine development process means that uptake remains low. .
The Moscow Times has reported that Moscow doctors are unwilling to receive a vaccine that many consider unproven, with regulatory approval granted based on test results from much smaller groups of volunteers than normal, and before the end of the trials phase III. Scenes from clinics in the capital two weeks into the mass vaccination program indicate that other workers eligible for the jab feel the same.
So far, Russia’s mass launch of the vaccine that began on December 4 has been targeted at key workers in certain government-designated sectors, with initial access to the vaccine limited to doctors, social workers and teachers.
Although the vaccine is still out of reach for those over 60, the range of eligible beneficiaries has progressively expanded to include retail, manufacturing, and cultural workers, as well as municipal employees, transportation personnel, and journalists. Now attacks are taking place in all 85 regions of Russia.
Still, the exact number of Russians who have received the vaccine is unknown.
On December 10, Alexander Gintsberg, director of the Gamaleya Institute, which developed Sputnik V, told state television that more than 150,000 people had already received the vaccine nationwide, the most in any country in the world.
Yet in Moscow, the first Russian city to embark on a major vaccination push, the true picture remains unclear.
Five days after the capital’s vaccination campaign, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, who has said that the city will have to inoculate between six and seven million residents in the coming months, announced that more than six thousand people had received Sputnik V.
With 70 specialty clinics in the capital administering the vaccine, Sobyanin’s words suggested that an average of just 17 people per day received the vaccine at each clinic. That compares with the 130,000 who were reportedly vaccinated in the first week of the equivalent UK coronavirus campaign.
In a later update on December 16, eleven days after the vaccination program, Sobyanin told lawmakers at Moscow City Hall that 12,000 Muscovites in total had been vaccinated, a figure that implies a further drop in the vaccination rate across the city for 1000 patients receiving Sputnik V daily, which equates to just 14 per clinic.
The Ministry of Health recently announced that foreign nationals residing in Russia can receive the vaccine, possibly hinting at lower absorption than expected among Muscovites, to whom the vaccine was initially limited.
At six Moscow coronavirus vaccination clinics visited by The Moscow Times on Wednesday, ranging from those serving the city’s suburbs to wealthy districts around the Kremlin, the situation was mixed.
As potential recipients must pre-register for the vaccine online, queues for Sputnik V are rare, and most patients visit clinics for reasons other than coronavirus.
Although some clinics reported high demand for the vaccine as mass inoculation by Interior Ministry employees began, at several medical centers staff spoke of the difficulties in finding enough patients willing to be vaccinated.
At a branch of Municipal Polyclinic No. 3, which serves much of central Moscow at several different locations, staff reported that the absorption of the vaccine was especially low.
“Even on a good day, we didn’t get more than ten people,” said an administrator who oversees coronavirus vaccination at the clinic’s branch, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sputnik V, which is shipped in five-dose packs and must be kept frozen at minus 70 degrees Celsius, is generally administered to groups of five patients at a time, as each five-dose pack can only be thawed for an hour before being turned unusable. .
According to documents seen by The Moscow Times, in at least one day the clinic’s branch had only registered four patients willing to receive the vaccine, which means that the remaining fifth dose might have to be discarded.
Underlying mistrust
Above all, Sputnik V’s struggles at home reflect the Russian public’s underlying mistrust of the healthcare system.
Overseas, more than fifty countries have so far asked to buy or produce Sputnik V, while British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is exploring the possibility of combining the Russian vaccine with its own.
However, in Russia itself, reactions have been decidedly cooler.
“There is a generally disoriented atmosphere in Russian society. People don’t really trust the news when it comes to the virus, ”said Alexei Levinson, director of the Sociocultural Research Department at the independent pollster at the Levada Center.
According to an October survey by Levada, 59% of those surveyed would not take a free coronavirus vaccine. An earlier poll conducted in August showed that only 13% of respondents expressed their confidence in Sputnik V.
Most recent survey, conducted in December by the Public Opinion Fund, a pollster linked to the government, has Support for the vaccine is on the rise, with 42% indicating they are willing to get the prick, even as the majority of 52% of those surveyed remain reluctant to take Sputnik V.
Unfounded claims
Although Levinson believes that Russian skepticism towards the vaccine has deep roots, as many Russians instinctively prefer foreign-made drugs, the situation has been further exacerbated by the growth of anti-vaccine material online, which has exploded in popularity since the beginning of the pandemic.
“There is no basis for vaccination in Russia,” said Irina Yermakova, a biologist whose videos spreading unsubstantiated claims that Sputnik V, and vaccines in general, are ineffective and possibly dangerous, have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in YouTube and on the largest social network in Russia. VKontakte network.
“They hide information about the nature of the virus. Until we know more, I will not trust any vaccine, “he said.
According to Alexandra Arkhipova, an anthropologist at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration who studies the spread of conspiracy theories, rumors about the negative side effects of the coronavirus vaccine began surfacing online on December 3. , the same day that the mass vaccination was carried out in Moscow. the program was announced.
“The most popular of all is the rumor that if you get vaccinated you will get sick,” Arkhipova said.
Daniil Galaydov contributed reporting.
