MOSCOW – Vladimir Putin has registered the world’s first state-approved vaccine against the coronavirus and expected likely congratulations – at least at home – for winning the worldwide race for a vaccine, but even Russians are not so sure this is a good thing idea is.
Epidemiologists, pharmacologists and doctors in Russia have reacted to the alleged breakthrough with skepticism, and they are certainly not prepared to be injected first.
Russian scientists plan to begin the final stage of the trials on Monday, and plan to begin mass vaccination in October. Siberian scientists in the city of Novosibirsk are offering thousands of volunteers $ 1,997 to donate the vaccine, reports the news website Znak. That’s a lot of money for Novosibirsk, where the average monthly salary is $ 519.
Many fear that it is dangerous to open the vaccine to the public weeks before the third-stage trials are completed. “It seems that five months for making such an important drug is too short a time,” an article in the popular newspaper Kommersant listed on Friday.
The whole enterprise evokes Soviet-era scientific experiment that included many great advances, but sometimes took a deadly price-cut, from collision faxes and accidental leaks from weapons laboratories, to the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.
To promote the world-first vaccine, Putin has boasted that one of his own daughters was among the first to volunteer. Authorities want thousands of Russians between the ages of 18 and 60 to follow suit.
The Daily Beast asked Russian doctors, scientists, business leaders, artists, housewives and retirees whether they would venture to take the untested but potentially life-saving vaccine.
The president of the Russian Society of Evidence-Based Medicine, Dr. Vasily Vlasov, said he had no plans to use the vaccine, nor would he recommend it to his friends or family. He sounded frustrated, explaining that there was no way to investigate any of the findings from the first two stages of the trials. ‘She announced the fax ready; but the makers have not yet published the actual results of their research, ”he said. “Everything is based on some obscure protocols and the longer they delay publication, the more doubt people will have.”
The investigation looked from the beginning much like a secret military operation. The fax, made by a team of experts from the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Gamaleya Institute, is called Sputnik V, in honor of the winning space-race-era satellite, which also gave its name to one of ‘ the leading state of Russia-operated propaganda news websites.
Leading epidemiologists and a trade group for medical experiments, the Russian Association of Clinical Trials, publicly accused the Kremlin of delaying the registration of the vaccine, but they were ignored. Some scientists warned that it was possible that Sputnik V could even make the disease virulent in those who were vaccinated.
“This fax is made of politics.”
The number of Sputnik volunteers remains unclear. Some sources suggest that just 76 people took part in trials, others said hundreds received the vaccine – some of them unofficially – before formal registration. Russian epidemiologists have been forced to rely on rumors: “Since the second phase was carried out by the Ministry of Defense, everything is kept a big secret,” said Mikhail Favorov, an epidemiologist who is worried about possible side effects. “Once the vaccine has been given, there is nothing to do – that’s something terrible.”
“This fax is made of politics,” said Alexander Nevzorov, a well-known radio observer. “This is a pharmacological record. Thirty-eight people visited it, while the whole world says 5000 is not enough – this is both a record and a record of absolute impetus [arrogance?]. ”
Normal life has returned to lockdown in Russia: local tourism is booming and passengers are following on planes, many without masks on. Moscow’s restaurants, gyms and galleries are once again bustling with visitors, although the capital reports between 600 and 700 new cases every day. There is no doubt that an effective vaccine is needed here, just as it is in the rest of the world.
To try to persuade Russians to take up the Sputnik V vaccination, the government invited the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, Aleksey Venediktov, to visit the fax machine. In a broadcast, he said he had refused. This is what Venediktov’s deputy Olga Bychkova said: “I do not want to be a guinea pig for these medical experiments,” she told The Daily Beast.
The Kremlin has high hopes for Sputnik V – imagining it could raise as much as a quarter of the world’s demand for a coronavirus vaccine, which would earn $ 75 billion, according to the business newspaper Vedomosti.
“I do not want to be a Guinea pig for these medical experiments.”
Denis Logunov, one of the creators of the Russian vaccine, explained that the rapid registration was needed “so that people at risk could participate in the study.” That statement did not bring comfort to people with family members in groups at risk. “My son, a scientist researching COVID, did not let me vaccinate with Sputnik V because the reaction could have poisoned me,” said Olga Frolova, a 67-year-old retiree.
Many feel that Russia should at least wait until some of the early volunteers have been exposed to the coronavirus and the effectiveness of the vaccine has been well tested. One of Lukoil’s top executives, Vasily Zubakin, had a simple explanation for his decision to wait: “Being 61 in the risk group, I’m just scared,” he said.
“To be 61 in the risk group, I’m just scared.”
There is a deep-rooted respect for doctors and scientists in Russia. Research conducted by the Higher School of Economics a few years ago asked which occupations people personally respected, and 41 percent named doctors as the most respected professionals. However, authorities provided generations of doctors with a report of adverse side effects on faxes in the Soviet Union. “For decades, the Soviet government kept secret medical complications after vaccination a secret. It was not until 1998 that the Russian Ministry of Public Health drafted compensation laws, ”Vlasov told The Daily Beast. ‘I remember children suffering from cysts, and infected bones after Soviet vaccination against TB. We still have a lot of questions about coronavirus. ”
Among the Moscow elite, pop stars, film directors, radio and TV presenters are all afraid of the impact of the coronavirus on their work. Theaters, which are at the heart of Russia’s cultural life, are about to open their doors for the new season.
Keeping the virus at bay is crucial for thousands in the entertainment industry, but many remain skeptical. “For now, I and all my friends feel doubts about the creation of this vaccine, the fist around it,” popular comedian and choreographer Yekaterina Varnava told The Daily Beast. ‘At least eight months of trial must take before it really becomes real, legit; it is unclear how they suddenly made it. “
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