New Coronavirus News from 31 Oct 2021

Russia reports an all-time high of 40,993 daily coronavirus cases [TASS, 31 Oct 2021]

The number of patients undergoing medical treatment from the novel coronavirus increased to 916,713
MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. Confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia grew by an all-time high of 40,993 in the past day to 8,513,790, the federal anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Sunday.

The coronavirus growth rate equaled 0.48%, it said.

In particular, 3,597 new coronavirus cases were registered in the past day in St. Petersburg, 2,737 in the Moscow Region, 1,458 in the Samara Region, 799 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region and 793 in the Voronezh Region, the latest figures show.

The number of patients undergoing medical treatment from the novel coronavirus increased to 916,713, the crisis center informed.

Confirmed monthly coronavirus cases in Russia topped a million in October for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to TASS estimates based on the anti-coronavirus crisis center’s data released on Sunday.

On October 1-31, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported 1,002,764 infections or 69.4% more on the previous month and 127% higher compared to October 2020.

Coronavirus recoveries in Russia grew by 27,115 in the past 24 hours to 7,358,539, the crisis center reported.

The share of patients discharged from hospitals upon their recovery dropped to 86.4% of all infections, it said.

Coronavirus fatalities in Russia grew by 1,158 in the past day compared to 1,160 a day before to 238,538, the crisis center reported.

The mortality rate remained at 2.8%, it said.

Coronavirus cases in Moscow increased by 7,603 in the past day compared to 7,267 a day before to 1,817,391, the crisis center reported.

The coronavirus growth rate in the Russian capital equaled 0.42%, the latest data show.

Ninety-four coronavirus patients died in Moscow in the past day compared to ninety-seven a day before, bringing fatalities to 31,342 in the Russian capital (1.72% of all infections), the crisis center reported.

New Coronavirus News from 30 Oct 2021

Germany fears fourth Covid wave as vaccination rates remain low [The Guardian, 30 Oct 2021]

By Philip Oltermann

With a new governing coalition yet to be formed and jab refusal high, experts worry the country is unprepared for a surge in cases

Concerns are mounting in Germany about a rapidly growing and hard to predict fourth wave of Covid-19 this autumn, as the government is in transition and flatlining vaccination rates lag behind those in the rest of western Europe.

An increasingly mobile population, a largely dismantled pop-up testing infrastructure and reduced staffing at hospitals have led some experts to warn that the government is facing a resurgent virus with less resolve than at previous stages of the pandemic.

“I am not relaxed about it,” said Hendrick Streeck, director of the institutes of virology and HIV research at Bonn University. “Capacity at intensive care units is reduced; we may have to factor in another influenza wave. Our grasp of the dynamic behind the infections is not great, but we have higher mobility,” Streeck said.

Germany’s disease control agency has warned of a “growing likelihood of infectious contacts” after reporting an incidence rate of 145 new infections per 100,000 residents – the highest recorded since May this year.

More people in Germany are infected with the virus than at the same point in 2020: according to the federal government’s own data 205,700 people were infectious on 29 October 2021 compared with 131,541 people on 29 October 2020.

At 75, the rolling seven-day average of deaths linked to the coronavirus in Germany is also higher than a year ago, when it was 44.

The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care beds is roughly on a par with October 2020 levels, with 1,868 patients registered on Friday. Last autumn, cases kept on rising in spite of “lockdown light” restrictions, until hospital bed occupancy peaked, with about 5,700 cases being treated in the first week of January.

“We are at a critical stage of the pandemic”, said Gerald Gass, chair of the German Hospital Federation. “If this trend persists, we will be back to 3,000 patients on intensive care within two weeks”, he said.

The German health ministry said it was confident that clinics in the country would not have to invoke triage, when acute care cannot be provided to every patient in need because of lack of resources.

While levels of compliance with hygiene restrictions such as mask-wearing on public transport is high, Germany and its southern neighbour Austria lag behind other western European nations on vaccination rates. Sixty-six per cent of Germany’s population is fully vaccinated, compared with 68% in France, 71% in Italy and 80% in Spain.

Unlike some southern European states, Germany opted against making vaccination mandatory for specific sectors of industry.

A survey commissioned by the health ministry suggests the rate of vaccinations is unlikely to improve in the near future: 65% of those who have so far refused the jab said they would “in no way” take a vaccine in the next two months, while a further 23% said they would “probably not” let themselves be immunised.

In spite of the rising numbers, the three parties likely to make up Germany’s next government have agreed in principle to end the “epidemic situation of national relevance” by the end of November.

But 25 November would not be a “freedom day” as celebrated by the British government, say politicians from the Social Democratic party, which is expected to lead the next government in a coalition with the Greens and the Free Democratic party.

While the parties say they plan to continue to enforce mandated mask-wearing, social distancing and limited access to cultural venues for those without double vaccinations, they have effectively ruled out another nationwide lockdown including school closures and curfews.

Inside Russia's 'fourth wave': Record deaths, deep frustration and plenty of blame [The Washington Post, 30 Oct 2021]

By Robyn Dixon

MOSCOW — A routine medical checkup in mid-September nearly cost Alexander Ivanov his life. The clinic was packed with people, almost no one wearing masks.

“Or distancing,” he said — a common sight in Russian public spaces and on transport. “I even told some of the people that they should be wearing masks, but people didn’t care.”

Three days later he fell ill with the coronavirus and wound up in intensive care in Yekaterinburg, in Russia’s Urals region. The 47-year-old resident — who was not vaccinated — watched other patients dying, thinking he was next.

Russia’s catastrophic “fourth wave” is a cautionary tale for a failing vaccination campaign, showing the difficulties in correcting course after the government’s confused, on-off messaging about covid-19.

Russia’s pandemic measures began with a strict lockdown in early 2020 and dropped before a crucial July 2020 vote on constitutional changes. This summer, Moscow brought in QR codes to prove vaccine status to enter bars, restaurants and cafes, but the unpopular measure was abandoned after a few weeks.

Some analysts say Russians’ distrust of authorities and skepticism of doctors — going back to Soviet times — helps explain the country’s vaccine reticence. Others blame anti-vaccine activists and rampant disinformation on social media.

But the result leaves Russia as a pandemic hot spot, while countries with higher vaccination rates are lifting restrictions.

Almost daily, a grim record of Russian deaths is marked: more than 1,100 a day, according to official figures. That is still understated, many independent analysts say. Hospitals are struggling and small business owners are angered by the reimposition of restrictions, including a partial lockdown from Thursday.

Three decades after the Soviet era, this Moscow street echoes what was.

As authorities played down the crisis before September parliamentary elections, Russia’s vaccination rate hovered among the lowest globally. In recent weeks, officials have ramped up warnings about the coronavirus and the need for vaccines.

Russia’s Ministry of Health says it has fully vaccinated 8 million Russians since Oct. 14, bringing the current total to 50.9 million, or about 35 percent of the population. That compares to 74 percent in Canada, 72 percent in Japan, 68 percent in France, 67 percent in Britain, 66 percent in Germany and 57 percent in the United States, according to the Britain-based Global Change Data Lab.

Ivanov is not against the vaccine, but his attitude illustrates how the government failed to convince even those not opposed to vaccines. A retired policeman who spends a lot of time with his dogs and chickens at his small farm outside Yekaterinburg, he didn’t think the jab was necessary.

“I was planning to do it, but I just thought tomorrow. And tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I just didn’t get around to it,” said Ivanov. “I didn’t take this virus seriously at all. I thought it was like the flu, not dangerous at all. I was not afraid.”

In intensive care for several weeks, his only contact with the outside world was a doctor who reported his condition to his family and read them notes he wrote.

“So I wrote, ‘Don’t worry, I’m okay.’ But of course I was thinking I could die, especially when I saw people around me dying,” Ivanov said.

In Russia, experts are challenging official pandemic figures as too low. They refuse to be silenced.

Vlad Nesterov — father-in-law of Ivanov’s daughter — had similar views about getting the virus. He also fell sick in late September, along with his family and almost everyone in the office where he worked.

Nesterov, a journalist, thinks he picked it up at an office birthday party. There was plenty of vodka and toasts and many guests later came down with covid-19.

“I’m not against the vaccine. It’s just that I thought that Jesus Christ would help me, and whatever should happen would happen,” said Nesterov. He spent four weeks battling the coronavirus at home, ill and constantly exhausted.

St. Petersburg doctor Lev Averbakh feels as is if he is wading against a tide of ignorance, apathy and disinformation. “I am so sick and tired of explaining to people what this virus is about and why they need to be vaccinated. This resistance from the population is huge,” he said in an interview.

Another doctor, Sergei, working in the “red zone” — or the coronavirus treatment unit — at a regional hospital, no longer feels much compassion for unvaccinated patients. He just thinks about the generous red zone bonus payments that means he earns double his normal pay.

“But we covid doctors are very cynical now, because of these covid payments. For us, covid is good, as awful as that might sound,” said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals. “For us, the worse the covid situation is the better,” he said referring to doctors’ bonuses.

A few months ago, he asked every one of 120 coronavirus patients under his direct care if they had been vaccinated. All said no, citing vague reasons such as “side effects or genetic problems,” he said.

As Russian voting moves online, Putin’s foes say another path to curb Kremlin is lost
His 200-bed hospital was ordered to add 70 extra beds when the disease peaked.

“And there was no space to put beds. We had to stick beds in the corridors, in the operating theaters, anywhere we could find a space,” said the doctor. Patients without coronavirus-related illnesses were sent home prematurely, he said, only to return soon after, sicker than ever.

With cases hitting record highs, hospitals across Russia are under similar intense pressures.
One person in Siberia took drastic action: he bought PPE gear, disguised himself as a nurse and sneaked into the “red zone” at Tomsk Medical Sanitary Unit No. 2 to check on his 80-year-old grandmother.

Identifying himself only as Sergei, he videoed himself pulling on a white protective suit, surgical gloves, blue goggles and a mask, and walking up the hospital’s interior stairs.

“Grandma, hi. Quiet, quiet,” he said, approaching her bed, recording multiple black bruises on her arms and discovering that her diaper had not been changed and pressure sores had not been bandaged. The video was aired Wednesday on Tomsk independent television TV2.

He spent nearly nine and a half hours in the hospital the first day and returned a day later to find her unwashed, lying again in a dirty diaper, he said. On day three, a doctor confronted him and he fled.

Antonina Stoilova, head of therapeutics at the hospital, said all patients are properly cared for, TV2 reported.

Russia considers using ‘Sputnik Light’ as booster against COVID-19 [Global News, 30 Oct 2021]

By Tom Balmforth and Maria Kiselyova

Russia will recommend using the domestically-made Sputnik Light vaccine against COVID-19 only as a booster for people who have already been vaccinated, Russian news agencies cited the health minister as saying on Saturday.

Russia had previously promoted Sputnik Light, which comprises the first shot of its flagship two-shot Sputnik V, as an effective standalone vaccine as well as a booster that can be combined with non-Russian vaccines.

“As the Delta variant is advancing, there will definitely be changes made today to the methodological recommendations on vaccinations where it will (say): only use ‘Sputnik Light’ for re-vaccination,” Health Minister Mikhail Murashko was quoted as saying by TASS.

“We see that a higher quality immunity is formed after two-stage vaccination, and this is crucially important to preserve health,” Interfax quoted Murashko as saying.

He was speaking during a trip to Russia’s Vladimir region east of Moscow after President Vladimir Putin instructed the minister and his deputies to visit regions that have been worst hit by the latest wave of the pandemic.

Russia on Saturday reported 40,251 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, its highest single-day case tally of the pandemic so far. Its daily death toll, at 1,160, was only three short of a record high reported on Friday.

Sputnik Light vaccine has demonstrated 70 per cent effectiveness against the Delta variant three months after injection and is likely to become the country’s main vaccine in the future, Russia said earlier this month.

Putin told a meeting of G20 nations by video link on Saturday that Sputnik Light could be used to increase the effectiveness of other vaccines.

“We are working to this end with our colleagues from European countries and are offering it to our partners,” he said.

Russia records all-time high of 40,251 new daily coronavirus cases [TASS, 30 Oct 2021]

By Jake Rudnitsky and Evgenia Pismennaya

Russia recorded 1,160 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours

MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. Russia recorded 40,251 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the highest daily number since the beginning of the pandemic, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Saturday. The total number of cases has reached 8,472,797.

According to data from the crisis center, Russia's coronavirus growth rate was 0.48%.

In particular, 7,267 coronavirus cases were reported in Moscow in the past day, 3,578 in St. Petersburg, 2,680 in the Moscow region, 1,405 in the Samara region, 815 in the Nizhny Novgorod region and 787 in the Voronezh region.

There are currently 903,993 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

Recoveries and deaths
Russia's coronavirus recoveries rose by 28,909 to 7,331,424 in the past 24 hours.

According to data from the crisis center, 86.5% of coronavirus patients have recovered in Russia.

In particular, 3,088 coronavirus recoveries were reported in the Moscow region in the past day, 2,604 in St. Petersburg, 823 in Crimea, 822 in the Samara region and 662 in the Bashkortostan region.

Russia recorded 1,160 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, down from 1,163 the day before. The total death toll has climbed to 237,380.

According to data from the crisis center, 2.8% of coronavirus patients have died in Russia.

In particular, 76 coronavirus fatalities were reported in St. Petersburg in the past day, 43 in the Krasnodar region, 39 in the Moscow region, 36 in the Bashkortostan region and 34 in the Rostov region.

Coronavirus in Moscow
Moscow recorded 7,267 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, down from 7,511 the day before. The total number of cases has reached 1,809,788.

According to data from the crisis center, Moscow’s coronavirus growth rate was 0.4%.

The city's coronavirus death toll increased by 97 to 31,248 in the past day and recoveries rose by 5,506 to 1,588,697.

There are currently 189,843 active coronavirus cases in Moscow.

Russia battles highest COVID-19 infection and death rates since the pandemic's start [NPR, 30 Oct 2021]

By CHARLES MAYNES

Russia is seeing its highest infection and death rates since the start of the pandemic. It's beginning a controversial 10-day shutdown in an attempt to defeat the virus.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
For almost a year, as coronavirus spread across Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, Russia's numbers were curiously low by comparison. Well, that has changed. This week, Russian health authorities reported that rates of infections and death are the highest since the start of the pandemic. And this morning, in an effort to slow further spread of the disease, Russia begins a, quote, "nonworking period." From Moscow, NPR's Charles Maynes reports.

CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: There was a time when President Vladimir Putin boasted of Russia's handling of the coronavirus, including rollout of its Sputnik V vaccine. Yet with surging infections and the death toll mounting, a clearly frustrated Putin said last week he couldn't comprehend why Russians - nearly two-thirds of them - continue to refuse to get the shot.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: "I can't understand what's going on," said Putin. "We have a reliable and efficient vaccine. I want to emphasize again there are only two choices - get sick or get vaccinated."

Russian officials have registered the highest death toll in Europe, and there's solid evidence the real total is far more than the official count. Yet it's an unprecedented surge from the delta strain of the virus that has the Kremlin reintroducing what it calls a nonworking week while giving regional authorities broad powers to tackle the pandemic as they see fit.

For Khakassia, a republic in eastern Siberia, that means a 10 p.m. curfew and halt to all public transport, even if some locals doubt the move's impact.

ALEXEI KIRICHENKO: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: "There's not much to do here after 10 p.m. anyway. It's cold out," says Alexei Kirichenko (ph), an independent journalist in Khakassia's main city of Abakan, who said spare beds in local COVID wards were filling up fast, along with gripes about the new restrictions.

KIRICHENKO: (Through interpreter) The same people who complain about the curfew and buses not working are the same ones who never wore masks to begin with.

MAYNES: Back in Moscow, a web of lockdown measures brought an abrupt end to a sense of normalcy that had settled over the capital in recent months. Unvaccinated seniors are required to stay indoors, schools have shuttered and offices have sent workers home. Meanwhile, city restaurants, bars, cafes and movie theaters - pretty much everyone in the business of fun - have been ordered closed to customers.

ANNA ALEKSEEVA: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: "The lockdown is hitting us again," says a disappointed Anna Alekseeva (ph), who works in a small craft beer bar.

ALEKSEEVA: (Through interpreter) If they keep us shut until the new year, we're done for. This isn't Europe or America, where they at least provided some financial assistance. The government here doesn't care about small business at all.

MAYNES: Moscow theaters and museums remain among the few public spaces still open to visitors, albeit at 50% capacity and with proof of vaccination.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: That includes "Life With Viruses," a new exhibit dedicated to the interplay between humans, pathogens and science over the centuries. Tour guides lead visitors through huge models of spores and bacteria. An interactive video game called Pandemic allows players to try and save a metropolis from mass infection. And in the corner, a hologram of the coronavirus, with its now-famous spikes, pulsates against the wall.

SERGEI RYKOV: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: Exhibit curator Sergei Rykov (ph) says he often finds himself looking at it and meditating.

RYKOV: (Through interpreter) We don't want to scare anyone. Our goal is to inform. The more we understand what we're dealing with, the better chance we have of coming up with ways to defend ourselves.

MAYNES: Rykov notes the exhibit's tell-it-like-it-is approach has proved popular with once-skeptical health officials now looking to reboot Russia's vaccination efforts.

Yet some health experts say Russia's current COVID woes are due at least in part to the Kremlin's own propaganda machine.

GEORGII BAZYKIN: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: Georgii Bazykin, a biologist at the Skolkovo Institute in Moscow who studied the epidemiology of the virus, says state media has pushed conspiracies questioning the efficacy of Western vaccines that undermine Russia's own campaign.

BAZYKIN: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: "It played a cruel joke on Russia's vaccination efforts," says Bazykin, "a country that produces and exports a vaccine its own citizens refuse to take."