Sad triumph of patriots: Russia did not cope with covid itself and will not help the others as well

Paradoxical pandemic policy of the Russian authorities in detail disassembled in its publication analyst Dmitry Nekrasov:

“I will now express two judgments that will seem to many to be directly opposite. But I will explain later why there is no contradiction in them.

1. On the whole, I consider the policy of soft quarantine measures pursued in the Russian Federation to be relatively reasonable. The response of the Russian health care system to the shock associated with the epidemic was no less, and in many respects even more effective than in many countries of a comparable level of development. Additional beds were quickly deployed, protocols were worked out, etc. etc. Much has been done much better than one would expect. And even the principle of vaccinating those who want to, and not strictly by age, I consider acceptable (and correct in Russian conditions).

2. Nevertheless, objective data inexorably testifies to the fact that Russia coped with the epidemic MUCH WORSE than the absolute majority of countries in the world.

Indeed, to assess the results, one must look not at how many officially died from the coronavirus in our country, but at how much more died in 2020 compared to 2019 or compared to the moving average for 2014-2019.

Preliminary data from Rosstat, recently announced by Deputy Prime Minister Golikova (they are not yet available on the Rosstat website), indicate that 326,000 more people died in Russia in 2020 than in 2019. The New York Times writes about the surplus 362,000, and according to the maximum estimates of the "spiteful critics of Russia" practicing arithmetic, more than 420,000 people come out.

(Here it is necessary to make a big disclaimer about statistics, because I spent more than one hour of time to figure it out:

A. You can compare 2020 to 2019, you can compare 2020 to the average for 3 or 5 years, or you can compare to the official mortality forecast from 2019 to 2020. What base will you get such a figure.

B. The statistics I found, summarizing the results of many countries, are divided into 2 categories according to the purpose of compilation: it is either smart and methodologically correct doctors who scare the population of developed countries, and therefore, instead of insignificant absolute mortality figures, they give P-deviations by age group, which is not very clear; or the "spiteful critics of Russia" take any convenient figure from the bulldozer and bring it to the necessary conclusions (the NY Times writes right in the footnote, here we took it like this, but in Russia like this, ie it is not directly comparable).

Q. I was not too lazy and personally climbed the websites of statistical agencies of two dozen countries stupidly comparing the mortality rate of 2019 to the mortality rate of 2020 without any mischief. The data are not everywhere already, but wherever they are, they fully confirm what is written below: Russia has one of the highest excess mortality rates in the world.)

Even if we take the figure voiced by Golikova of 326,000 excess deaths in 2020 by 2019, we get about 2,170 excess deaths per 1 million of the population of Russia. At the same time, in the EU, on average, by 2020 by 2019, it gave +580,000 additional deaths, or approximately 1,300 deaths per 1 million population. For the USA (preliminary data) +504,000 deaths or 1,520 deaths per million population. No matter how much I tried to search for individual European countries (not everywhere, almost everything is preliminary), I have never seen in any data excess mortality more than +2000 people per 1 million population.

What's especially amusing is that in countries like France or Belgium, the number of real excess deaths year-on-year is LESS than the number of people who officially died from the coronavirus. While in the Russian Federation, excess mortality is 6 times higher (!) Than the number of official victims of the epidemic.

Thus, in all these Italy-Spain-England-USA, about which Russian propaganda showed terrible horror stories all year in reality, fewer or even several times fewer people died in a year in proportion to the population than in the “prosperous” RF. There are 1 million more excess deaths in Russia than even in Ukraine (the question is, how many people are there in Ukraine. If there are actually less than 30 million, that's about that). Among the obvious, in terms of real excess mortality by 1 million, the Russian Federation lags behind only a number of Latin American countries: Peru, Mexico, etc.

(I understand that not all excess deaths originated directly from the coronavirus, as well as about fluctuations in mortality and weather. But, you see, from today the epidemic is the most obvious explanation for excess deaths).

3. Probably, some part of the difference in mortality is due to the mildness of restrictive measures, although the same Sweden does not deviate from the EU average values. Probably, something also depends on medicine. (And something from the age, which is lower in the Russian Federation). However, most of all, Russia differs from the rest of the world not in this, but in the peculiarities of information policy.

The authorities and the media under their control have consistently hushed up the real scale of the epidemic. Instead of frightening the population and urging them to be vigilant, they spread bravura reports about how good we are. Maintaining an already disregarding attitude towards the simplest precautions.

The authorities did not really bother with providing a mask regime (unlike quarantines, this measure is cheap and therefore justified). Especially in comparison with the EU. In Europe, even on the street you do not often see people without a mask, and in public places you will not see them at all. In the Russian Federation, even in shopping centers and the metro, most walk without masks, there is nothing to say about the street. But how to prosecute for masks if it is announced that Putin has won the epidemic?

The fact that people are now not queuing up for a vaccine that really exists is a consequence of the same criminal information policy. Having a good vaccine in Russia today, the level of vaccinations in% of the population is LOWER than the world average, 2.5 times LOWER than the EU average, to which we are trying to send Sputnik. According to various estimates, Russia is among the 5-6th ten countries in terms of% of the vaccinated population.

And while the vaccine is really there, but there are no queues. Well, why be vaccinated if the virus is there in unhappy Europe, and we have it all the way?

In this situation, Russia will inevitably take root later than most, even developing countries, not to mention the EU countries, about the horrors of life in which the central channels tell Russians every day. As a result, at the end of 2021, excess mortality in the Russian Federation will also be higher than in most countries of the world. Based on the results of the entire epidemic and 2 years (and these data will be by the end of 2022), it is very likely one of the first places in the world in excess mortality

A vivid example of how out of the blue, because of great-power patriotism and the always accompanying lies, the authorities just kill tens if not hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens. Having better medicine than many comparable countries (the same Ukraine), having its own effective vaccine, Russia still manages to ditch a larger share of the population than in comparable countries. Simply because it is so great, and it is better to live in it than in unhappy Europe.

***

Apparently, "Sputnik" is a really good vaccine, one of the best 3-5 of the mass produced. And even the truth is superior to some Western counterparts in some parameters.

BUT:

Very little of Sputnik is being produced. Sputnik accounts for about 1.5% of all vaccines produced to date in the world (12 million out of 815 million have already been injected. In terms of production, there are some figures in the range of 1.3-1.7%, according to various sources). I repeat: Russia, hurrying to save the whole world, produces 1.5% of the global vaccine production, and this share is rather decreasing.

Let me put it in other words: to date, Russia has produced about 13 times less vaccines than China, 10 times less than the United States, 7 times less than Germany, 4 times less than India. Russian production is a plus or minus at the Dutch level, slightly less than England.

Russia physically cannot help any Europe with anything, because the volumes of real production of Sputnik are ridiculous. Sputnik can be produced in Europe basically at the same facilities that are involved in the production of Western vaccines, so there is no particular sense in this. This is pure stupid PR.

Moreover, as of the end of last week in Russia itself, just over 4% of the population was vaccinated with 2 doses, in the EU 10%, in England and the USA 30% of the population. The vaccination rate in the Russian Federation is even lower than the world average (4.9%). However, the TV continues to paint a picture where poor Europeans are dying without vaccines, but their Russophobic governments prevent the kind Putin from saving them.

(By the way, an interesting personal observation. The topic of coronavirus is politicized everywhere, but in other countries politicization is mainly carried out along the line of quarantine / not quarantine, or conspiracy / scientific approach, and in Russia, these lines are added (even prevailing over the others) not quite in this the theme is appropriate line patriots / opposition. And in some extreme black-and-white colors. Any facts that contradict the black-and-white picture of each side are completely swept aside)".