Half-opened Russia: Novye Izvestia compiled a free from QR-codes map of the country

Where are the islands of freedom left in Russia, which regions are reinsured, and which, on the contrary, are indifferent to what is happening?

Victoria Pavlova

The new week began with the fact that the authorities of the Krasnoyarsk Territory announced the introduction of the QR-code system from November 1, 2021. Without them, it will be impossible to get to theaters, cinemas and other sports events. They were followed by the Saratov region with a similar decision. The situation is quite unusual: last year, the capital's mayor Sergey Sobyanin was the unconditional trendsetter for antiquity measures.

Moscow, due to the high concentration of the population, immediately became the main focus of the spread of the coronavirus, and Sobyanin was the first to accept radical restrictions. All other heads of regions only followed his reception. Now the opposite is true: the screws are being tightened in the regions, and the mayor of Moscow imposingly talks only about the possible introduction of abstract restrictions sometime in the future, but at the same time without prejudice to the economy and development of the city.

Novye Izvestia collected all the information about the restrictions and drew up a "freedom map": it marks the regions that, as of October 18, 2021, either have already entered QR codes, or approved the decision to introduce such restrictions no later than mid-November. The subjects of the Russian Federation, where the authorities are only thinking about introducing QR codes without specific decisions, were not included in this list. And to assess the relevance of the restrictions, we calculated the incidence of coronavirus in the regions (people per 100 thousand inhabitants) according to the headquarters data as of October 15, 2021.

In total, at the moment, there are 48 regions in Russia that have switched to the QR code system - only a little more than half. And things with morbidity and mortality are still more than bad: as of October 18, 34325 cases of infection were detected in our country per day, and 2 times less recovered - 16431 people. 998 people have died. And the introduction of restrictions now is almost the only measure that can save people's lives. In an ideal world, everyone should be vaccinated with a reliable, working and safe vaccine, but the reality is different. All that remains is to introduce unpleasant restrictions.

This point of view is shared by the director of the Martsinovsky Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-borne Diseases of Sechenov University Alexander Lukashev:

“All restrictive measures were originally intended to give us time to vaccinate, and now that we have a vaccine available for almost a year, if we were actively vaccinated, we could live without these measures. All these measures are, unfortunately, the crutches that have to be used, because we are lagging behind with vaccination, to put it mildly".

But as calculations by Novye Izvestia have shown, not all regions are equally infectious.

When talking about morbidity, it should always be borne in mind that we are talking only about official statistics. And she is sometimes disingenuous. Among the safest regions, Chechnya is the most suspicious. So, for example, by August 18, 2021, the number of infections reached 173 per day. But then it very quickly dropped to 55 cases per day. The situation was similar in late 2020 - early 2021. It seems that a breakthrough in the field of virology has been made in Chechnya.

But Tatarstan, apparently, deservedly became the leader of our rating. The regional authorities under the leadership of Rustam Minnikhanov, inclined to various innovations and experiments against the wishes of the people (it was here that the distribution of cameras recording traffic violations began), did not stand on ceremony and restricted access to people without QR codes, not only to theaters and stadiums, without visiting which you can get by, but also in shopping centers with an area of more than 400 sq.m. The measure has already been tested: a ban on visiting large stores, for example, was introduced by Austria last year.

The continuation of restrictive measures until at least the spring of 2022, together with an increase in the number of vaccination sites, gives hope that at least one region will be free of covid in the foreseeable future. How business will survive these restrictions, how many enterprises will go bankrupt is another question.

The Krasnodar Territory, although it did without QR codes for visiting public places, fenced itself off from the infection with a ban on receiving unvaccinated and unrecovered tourists from August 2021. Tough, but as it turned out, not fatal. Rush demand still allowed to increase tourist flow by 1.5 times compared to last year to 13.6 million tourists.

The miracle of Dagestan is based primarily on the fresh air and mountains that stand in the way of the virus. The head of the republic, Sergey Melikov, did not give any special orders. In the summer, the night work of cafes was routinely limited, and mass events with more than 150 people were prohibited. Nothing unique.

The head of the Kemerovo region, Sergey Tsivilev, cannot yet be determined. The region is in limbo: in terms of the rate of vaccination, it is in the "yellow" zone, the authorities are preparing hospitals for an increase in the number of cases, but they are not introducing serious restrictions.

And in the capital, Sergey Sobyanin has his own atmosphere: the probability of getting infected is almost 19 (!) Times higher than in Tatarstan, but taking care of business and finances turned out to be more important than people's lives. If restrictions are introduced, Moscow entrepreneurs will revolt and begin to demand compensation. And how, then, in 2022, to increase spending on landscaping by 12% to 320.8 billion rubles? Likewise, tiles with borders may not be enough for a seasonal update.

A similar situation is with Alexander Beglov in St. Petersburg: the metropolis has an unpleasant experience of fighting with night bars, and now the situation is on its own. Against this background, the Leningrad region looks contrasting, tightening measures. One gets the impression that anti-corruption measures in Moscow are not aimed at combating the coronavirus, but exclusively at combating uncoordinated rallies.

The entry of Karelia into the "antitopic" looks logical - in the region, in fact, there is no system for testing people for COVID-19. Only public hospitals are allowed to study the tests. These are several locations for the entire region. With this approach, the initiative of the head of the region, Artur Parfenchikov, to accept tourists only with a PCR test or a vaccination certificate turned out to be meaningless. Tourists traveling around the region, with all their desire, did not have the opportunity to quickly update the PCR tests, which are valid for only 3 days.

The Nenets Autonomous District under the leadership of Yuri Bezdudny is one of 9 regions in which neither QR codes nor the mandatory vaccination of certain categories of citizens are even discussed. According to the authorities, it is enough to show a vaccination certificate or a negative PCR test when entering the region. And for those who do not ride in other areas, freedom is complete. A very dangerous freedom.

In Chukotka, which is largely isolated from the densely populated part of Russia, they are also primarily trying to protect themselves from the import of the virus from other regions. The head of the Autonomous Okrug Roman Kopin ordered the residents of Anadyr, Bilibino, Pevek and Ugolny Kopin to show either a negative PCR test, or a vaccination certificate, or turn gray at home after returning from other regions. Otherwise, you cannot go to work. And only last week they introduced compulsory vaccination for workers in education, health care, transport, and trade. Otherwise, everything is standard: a formal mask regime and a ban on holding public events in closed rooms. Alas, as practice shows, the tactic of setting barriers to entry into the region does not work.

But pay attention: both in the TOP of the best and in the TOP of the worst, most regions have introduced QR codes. Some are reinsured and show good results in the dynamics of infection, others are trying to catch up. And where are the “free” regions? They are in the middle of the ranking. This means that the Kaluga, Tambov, Kirov, Ryazan, Irkutsk, Yaroslavl regions, in which 15-20 people a day officially fall ill per 100 thousand inhabitants, have every chance to take their places in the ranking of the most dangerous regions already in the very near future. Unless, you can not worry about Tuva: miracles are happening there, like in Chechnya: after a sharp increase in the incidence of up to 190 people a day, there followed an equally sharp drop to 60 people a day. But there are many other reasons for premature death: alcoholism, murder ... Sholban Kara-ool created so many problems that the current head Vladislav Khovalyg will have to sort them out for a very long time.

Be that as it may, with such a dynamics in the spread of the coronavirus, new restrictions are inevitable. The people do not want to be vaccinated voluntarily - they lack trust. The notorious "Sputnik V" will not be certified by the WHO, because the international organization will not receive all the documentation from the Russian side (which is very suspicious), and the production of the only vaccine that people trust (so much so that they say that the prices for " free "vaccine rose to 40 thousand rubles)," KoviVak ", at the end of September was stopped for the sake of modernization of the production site. The authorities themselves missed the moment to achieve the recognition of vaccines among the people, and now they are forced to look for ways to limit human contacts in the least painless way, while opening air links with other countries, including Egypt, to calm down. Let them fly ...