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The situation of the epidemic in the rural regions of Russia is hellish, there are not enough medical personnel to treat the infected, many of whom are simply sent from the hospital. Doctors and nurses have not received protective equipment, so many are resigning.
The nerves of Russian social media consumers were shaken by a horrific video in mid-October. The picture shows the basement of a hospital in Barnaul, the capital of the Altai region, where the corpses of those who died from the coronavirus disease are stored in black plastic bags. In the absence of pathologists, they will not be able to perform autopsies on them, while the number of people infected with the coronavirus has skyrocketed in recent weeks, according to the Moscow Times citing a statement from the Ministry of Health. With this explanation, the ministry tried to alleviate the fact that the recordings were real.
Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health inspectorate, has further raised the alarm by announcing the realization of an “Italian scenario” in the region, which means a serious epidemic similar to that of spring in Lombardy. In the spring phase of the epidemic in the country, most of the coronavirus cases were registered in Moscow, but in the second round, less than 30 percent of infections fall on the capital, which is adequately prepared to attend to the patients. However, the field has never been in a similar situation to Moscow or St. Petersburg in terms of medical care, which now has dire consequences.
Not explained by evidence
Although the higher infection rates are partly due to more testing by authorities, it is undeniable that the epidemic is occurring in rural areas of Russia, says Vasily Vlasov, a professor of virology in Moscow. According to him, the country is now paying the price for the government to end quarantine measures with a single decision in May. Of course, there was a political reason for this: partly to allow the referendum to amend the constitution, which paved the way for Vladimir Putin’s presidency for a decade and a half, and partly to replace the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Second World War, which was postponed in early May.
Medical personnel working in rural areas constantly complain about the lack of hospital beds and a sufficient number of medical personnel. Even the first phase of managing the epidemic is believed to have been insufficient and the government did not take advantage of the decline in cases during the summer to make up for shortcomings before the second phase. We knew trouble was coming, but we didn’t strengthen the defense, complains Alexei, a surgeon working in Kalmykia, who currently has the highest number of infections.
Alexei’s hospital does not have enough beds, so patients whose condition is not critical are sent. Desperate, the staff of a hospital in the Kurgan region called for the appointment of military doctors to ease the burden on them. It is believed that without it, people could die at home or even on the street. We are in hell, health officials said in a letter to the BBC, adding that the health system in their area has collapsed, unable to replace sick health workers. In other places, doctors quit smoking in droves because they felt they were in grave danger seeing their colleagues infected.
Epidemic fatigue
Meanwhile, the phenomenon of so-called epidemic fatigue is also unknown in Russia, meaning that people, especially businessmen, are fed up with restrictions. For example, thousands of Moscow companies have told Mayor Sergei Sobyanin that he cannot abide by the rule that he must allow 30 percent of his employees to enter the central office.
Typical of the mood, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov celebrated his 53rd birthday at a huge party, which was held indoors, the participants vomited on the distance ruler, and no one had a mask. Alexei, the rural doctor quoted, commented on this saying that while dancing, in the end, health workers are working and fighting the epidemic. In Russia, mass vaccination of the population against the coronavirus is not expected to begin until February.
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