“Our nights look like this: horrible,” says a male voice describing the footage provided to CNN by the union of Russian doctors involved with the opposition. A member of the hospital staff in Ulyanovsk, a city 500 miles east of Moscow.
“Two more down in our ward,” he says as he shoots the corpse. “That’s how Kovid-19 is killing everyone.”
This horrific video is one of many obtained by CNN that reveals the horrific conditions of crowded facilities. Some of the footage shows mortgages with naked stripes, corpses on top of each other on glamorous structures, in scenes that look more like war zones than hospitals.
As Russia struggles to contain the epidemic, the videos show signs that the actual death toll is much higher than the official figures suggest.
Russia says more than 33,000 people have died from Kovid-19 as of November 16. But that number has been disputed by critics who say the Kremlin is underporting numbers.
“I think that’s the real figure [around] A total of 1,130,000 people said, “Former government statistician Alexei Raksha has made his own estimates based on official data on more and more deaths – more likely to die than expected – to assess the epidemic factor.
Using data from local registries, the defense estimates that from April to November Russia killed an additional 160,000-170,000. About 80% of these deaths are attributed to Covid-19 – the average number collected by the same figures published by Western countries.
During April-September 2020, Russia’s official mortality rate was 117,000 more deaths than last year, according to the Russian statistics agency, Rozstat. The official Covid-19 death toll for that period is about 21,000.
October No rostat data are available yet for October and November, but given the official ies released by the country’s Coronavirus Response Center, the spread of the epidemic has accelerated rapidly.
Raksha says he left Rostat in July after the agency publicly raised the issue of coronavirus-related deaths. He says the difference between the official figures and his calculations is due to the way Russia classifies its Kovid tragedy.
Rosestat uses a four-tier classification system, he explains. According to the agency’s website, they are: 1. The patient tests positive for Covid-19 before death; 2. While Covid-19 is thought to be the leading cause of death, but needs to be confirmed by autopsy or further research; When. When the underlying conditions contributed to the death of the virus; When. While Covid-1 was confirmed but not considered the main cause of death.
“Only the first level of the victim, when the patient tested positive for coronavirus before dying, is reported as a covid-19 death,” Raksha told CNN. According to the defense, the death toll in the other three levels is out of the official figures.
Neither the Russian Ministry of Health, the public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, nor Roseste responded to CNN’s request for comment.
This method of calculation differs from the guidelines of the World Health Organization, which states that all deaths related to Covid-19 should be counted until there is a “clear alternative cause of the disease which cannot be related”.
As it fights the epidemic, however, Russia still knows how to keep up the good performance. In August Gust, amid much fanfare, just before the crucial Phase 3 trials began, it became the first country to register a Spotnik V, coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine, which was found with suspicion by outside scientists, has not yet been widely given.
CNN was also rarely admitted to Moscow’s state-of-the-art 1300-bed state-of-the-art Coronavirus Hospital, known as the “Ice Palace” World Championship Ice-Skating Stadium.
“As well as giving us the tour, we have also managed the emergency complex,” Chief Doctor Ktre, Rendra Skoda, told CNN. “We have all the diagnostic equipment here, ultrasound, anesthesia and a ventilator.”
Looming upwards, a large screen that usually broadcasts skating or ice-hockey scores to the crowd is used to show movies to patients while they are receiving treatment.
The chief doctor said the hospital is fully digital; Each patient is assigned a bracelet with a QR code that links to all of their healthcare records.
“This is standard care,” he told CNN, throughout Moscow and beyond.
Yet, with an expanded network of medical facilities, this rosy picture of the country in complete control of the epidemic seems increasingly contradictory with graphic footage emerging from hospitals, erratic scrutiny of official statistics and the testimony of some medical personnel.
Last month, the Russian government acknowledged growing stress on its medical facilities, with Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova saying hospital beds in the five most affected areas were already at more than 95% capacity.
An ambulance driver in the Saratov region of southwestern Russia – who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity for fear of a reaction at work – said the situation at his hospital was “messed up.”
“Doctors also refuse to admit elderly patients with difficulty breathing.” “They say there is no need to hospitalize them. But the real reason is not enough spaces in the ward.”
In another video given to CNN, filmed in a heavier morgue, a male voice speaks to horrific images: “We could hardly find a place here. It’s like a horror movie.”
Anna Chernova in Moscow contributed to this report.
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