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May 14, 17:50
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The funeral of a man who allegedly died of a coronavirus in St. Petersburg (illustrative photo)
The Russian State Duma and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation demand a rebuttal of the New York Times and Financial Times publications on the underestimation of data on mortality from coronavirus in Russia. Otherwise, the editions are threatened with the deprivation of the accreditation.
The head of the State Duma commission to investigate the facts of interference in Russian affairs Vasily Piskarev appealed to the Russian Foreign Ministry “response to these journalists until the deprivation of their accreditation in Russia. “
According to the New York Times, in April, mortality in Moscow increased by 1,700 people compared to the previous five years. At the same time, according to official figures, only 642 people died from the coronavirus. The article was published on May 11.
A similar publication on the likely underestimation of mortality in Russia by 70% the same day appeared in the Financial Times.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said she had prepared letters for FT and NYT demanding to refute the published information. According to her, the additional steps regarding posts will depend on whether they post rebuttals.
NYT Vice President of Communications Daniel Rhodes has already stated that the publication is confident in the accuracy of the material and that the data cited in the article is not disputed.
HB publishes a translation of a NYT article stating that most coronavirus deaths are not included in Russian official statistics.
Coronavirus riddle explained: 1,700 people died in Moscow
Since the coronavirus spread around the world, researchers have been puzzled about the death rate in Russia, where the health care system is underfunded: around 13 people per million inhabitants, while the average worldwide is 36 people per million inhabitants.
It appears that all April mortality data is cleared up.
On May 8, the Moscow City Council released data showing that the total number of deaths recorded in the Russian capital in April exceeded the five-year average value for the same period by 1,700 people. This number is much higher than the official death rate of COVID-19 – 642 people, indicating a significant underestimation of this indicator by the authorities.
A similar image is seen in many other countries. For example, in neighboring Belarus, where authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko rejects quarantine calls as “Mortality rate of madness and psychosis due to coronavirus: 10 people per million inhabitants. In Mexico, officials recorded more than three times as many deaths as admitted by the government.
“The death rate in Moscow appears to be much higher than the April average in the last decade, “says Tatyana Mikhailova, a member of the Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow.
“One thing is clear: the number of victims of COVID-19 is probably almost three times higher than official data, “he said in an interview, adding that additional calculations are needed to get the exact number.
The new figures are in stark contrast to the official Kremlin line.
Speaking to President Vladimir Putin in late April, Anna Popova, head of the Russian Federal Service for the Supervision of the Protection of Consumer Rights and Human Welfare, boasted that the country’s death rate “one of the lowest in the world. “Russian state television channels are constantly promoting the country’s efforts to combat the coronavirus as “superior efforts of western countries. “
On May 11, declaring success in slowing down the spread of the coronavirus, despite a sharp rise in the number of infected people, Putin ordered the end of the entire country. “non-work period ”, effective from the end of March.
Speaking on state television shortly after health authorities reported a record increase in the number of people infected per day, Putin acknowledged that the pandemic had not yet been defeated, but said regional governors would now decide whether to eliminate or strengthen the restrictions in your region.
The official number of deaths from coronavirus as of May 11 in Moscow is 1124, across Russia – 2009, but getting an accurate estimate will be very difficult.
After city authorities announced the introduction of the quarantine, thousands of people left Moscow, which should have reduced mortality in the city. And many people could die from other causes, while 37 Moscow hospitals only treated patients with coronavirus.
Overall, about 70% of coronavirus deaths were not recorded in Moscow, and about 80% in other regions of the country, says Alexei Raksha, an independent Moscow demographer. He was one of the first to find hidden April data on a user-friendly state website with statistics when he studied death rates in the Russian capital and regions of the country and compared them to official data on the death toll.
According to Raksha, the low official figures can be explained by how the cause of death in Russia is recorded.
“For most deaths, the reported cause will be organ disease that directly caused it. This is how the system worked for a long time, ”he said, adding that, in his opinion, it is highly likely that authorities at some level are manipulating this system to achieve the desired result.
Last week on the Echo of Moscow radio station, the leading independent pathologist of the Russian Ministry of Health, Georgy Frank, admitted that health workers have the opportunity to record the cause of death in different ways.
“In some cases, COVID-19 may not be the leading cause of death, sometimes it may just be the background to the underlying disease. Of course, there may be some manipulation, but decent doctors will never allow it, “Frank said.
Russia reported the first death from a coronavirus on March 19, when a 79-year-old woman died in Moscow. Shortly after, the cause of death was reclassified as death due to the formation of a blood clot, and this case was excluded from the official list of deaths by COVID-19.
In April 2020, 11,800 people died in Moscow, which is far more than any other April since 1995, when Russia was captured by the post-Soviet economic crisis, worse than the Great Depression. This number was published by the Moscow government, which receives reports from the city’s civil registry departments, which record events as important as birth, marriage, and death.
Rosstat should update the death toll later this month, but it is unlikely to change much. On average, around 10,000 people die in the Russian capital every April.
Being the busiest checkpoint in the country, Moscow became the first territory in Russia affected by the coronavirus. However, she stayed behind (death rate – ed.) of European capitals, registering only a few deaths in mid-April.
The Russian regions, in turn, lag behind Moscow. As of the morning of May 11, Moscow accounted for 52% of all registered cases of coronavirus in Russia, more than 109 thousand people are infected there. (as of May 14, more than 130 thousand ed.). Experts believe that the mortality data from May, when the virus started covering Russia in earnest, will give a clearer picture of the actual number of deaths from coronavirus. Last week in Moscow, around 45 deaths and more than 5,000 new cases were recorded daily.
HB translation
