Third Wave Risk Crowns After Russian New Year Celebrations

Before the New Year, the St. Petersburg authorities came with a cold shower to all the restaurateurs. Between December 25 and 29, they must close at 7:00 p.m. From December 30 to January 3, they are ordered to remain closed completely.

The reason is grim: St. Petersburg is the city per capita most affected by Russia’s crown. Before Christmas, the number of people infected by the crown in the city was 20.2 per thousand inhabitants, the highest in Russia, which is one of the countries in the world most affected by the crown.

Outraged restorers in St. Petersburg responded by organizing a so-called “resistance map.” On the map, which was posted online, all bars and restaurants that refuse to follow the new rules could be registered. The number quickly increased to over a hundred.

– The reason is simple: if we say openly that we do not intend to follow the rules, we have at least a greater chance that the authorities will listen to us. We may be punished, but there is a chance that we will manage financially. But if we are not allowed to stay open, we can close just as easily. We can’t deal with that blow, restaurant owner Aleksandr Konovalov tells the independent Russian newspaper RBK.

According to him, most restaurants have long pre-paid for New Years holidays, the single most important income throughout the year.

A few weeks later the innkeepers held a meeting with the city administration, who promised that they would relax the rules as soon as there was room. In any case, there are many indications that several restaurants will secretly open on New Year’s Eve. Already in December, more than a hundred restaurants and bars in St. Petersburg refused to follow the rules since the end of November and closed at the latest at 11 p.m. Police conducted repeated nightly raids in the city’s restaurant district. The bars played a game of cats and rats where customers were asked to leave temporarily and doors were reopened as soon as the police had disappeared.

There is no indication that residents plan to isolate themselves during the New Year celebrations. The New Year in Russia in practice corresponds to our Christmas celebration, it is a family holiday in which they gather in large groups and often socialize beyond generational borders. Neither St. Petersburg nor any other Russian city has introduced rules on how many people can come together to celebrate.

At the same time, medical personnel in St. Petersburg warn that capacity is on the verge of breaking down.

– Sometimes when I come to work, we have a list of more than a hundred people who have called and requested an ambulance. We try to herd them during the day, but nothing helps. At night there are so many. We have more patients now than in the spring, says ambulance doctor Grigory Bobinov to the radio station bfm.ru in St. Petersburg.

Already in october The city opened a new crown hospital at the Lenekspo Congress Center with 295 beds. But during the fall, the number of corona cases has risen dramatically, in part due to the closure of schools for two weeks in October. This caused an increase in travel after a break during the summer, many families chose to use their free time to go to Turkey.

Starting in November, the spread of the infection increased rapidly. On December 20, news came that less than one percent of all beds in St. Petersburg are vacant for corona patients. The authorities quickly announced that the information was exaggerated, but admitted that the situation was very difficult.

– We have enough medicines, we have the capacity to attend to patients. The problem is that they keep coming. If we discharge 70 people today, the same number is guaranteed to be admitted to another hospital, chief physician Tatiana Surovtseva tells radio station bfm.ru.

Authorities in St. Petersburg has urged other Russian citizens not to come here to celebrate the New Year. One who does not heed the call is Russian President Vladimir Putin. He will celebrate the New Year in his old hometown for the third year in a row, at the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, where he was secretly baptized as a child.

In second place in the statistics of the Russian crown is Karelia, with a coefficient of 19.6. Moscow, previously in the lead, now ranks third with 19.2.

Putin’s contempt for the call not to visit St. Petersburg during the New Year is symptomatic of the attitude towards the coronavirus in Russia. As early as June 2020, 23.2 percent of the population thought the corona epidemic had been fabricated, according to a survey by independent Levada.

In early December, the governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, announced that the city is very close to closure.

– Very little now separates us from a total blockade. Fighting the epidemic is common. Let’s risk it and play by the rules together, Beglov said in a public appeal to the townspeople.

– Until the new year, we have the ability to care for covidual patients with serious complications. But then a limit comes, he says.

The causes to the serious epidemic in St. Petersburg in particular are many. The city’s governor blames the weather: St. Petersburg is built on a swamp and has a reputation in Russia as a center for lung diseases. This reputation does not have an important scientific basis, the spread of covid has other reasons. The city has a large middle class who loves to travel and who have taken every opportunity to go on vacation as soon as a country has opened its border with Russia, such as Turkey and Zanzibar. Petersburg has lagged far behind Moscow in terms of the proportion infected, but has introduced restrictions much later.

In the regions of Russia, the situation has been very difficult during the autumn. Now the infection seems to have receded a bit, for example in Altai, the worst affected country, but Russia as a whole is still on the so-called plateau. No decline in sight.

As in the west Some decision makers have become more popular during the pandemic. For example, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, is more popular than Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital. To the question “Name some of the decision makers in Moscow that you trust”, 19% answered Sobyanin and 18% Putin. This according to a survey by the independent center Levada, which was published two days before Christmas.

It is not certain that this poll is politically in favor of Sobjanin. Putin is known for not liking competitors.