How Russia failed to contain COVID

When you can’t safely criticize the government, no one trusts it. And if no one trusts it, no one will get vaccinated.

In theory, an authoritarian state like Russia should have an easier time fighting the COVID-19 pandemic than a liberal democracy. Conspiracy theorists are spreading misinformation about vaccines on the internet? Shut ‘em down. People are reluctant to get vaccinated at all? Force them to do it. Nothing to it, right?

That’s why I wrote, “in theory.” In practice, accordingly to a piece in Foreign Policy, it turns out that Russia’s response to COVID-19, at home and abroad, has completely collapsed:

As I write this, Russia is firmly in the grip of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every day, there are about 22,000 reported new infections—twice as many as during the peak of the first wave in May 2020—and more than 600 deaths. The new Delta variant of the virus, which Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin says is responsible for 90 per cent of new infections in the Russian capital, has caught Russia almost completely unawares. Despite having access to the brain power and resources of one o…