The Russian Covid-19 vaccine is being embraced abroad, rejected at home

Behind the skepticism lies doubts about the rapid development of Sputnik V and a deep-seated distrust of authorities stemming from the country’s Soviet past. For example, polls show that many Russians believe the coronavirus is a man-made biological weapon. At the same time, studies point to a strong current of Covid-19 disbelief in Russia.

While coronavirus infections in Russia are declining, slow acceptance of the vaccine leaves the country vulnerable to another wave. Russia has had more than four million infections, the fourth highest in the world. Vaccine hesitancy threatens to undermine the government’s goal of vaccinating about 60% of the population by summer.

“We were on an equal footing with everyone else in developing the vaccine, but we are now lagging behind in administering it,” said Anton Gopka, Dean of the Faculty of Technology Management and Innovations at ITMO University in St. Petersburg and General. partner of the investment company ATEM in the healthcare sector. Capital. “Ultimately, the big risk is that it will prolong the pandemic here.”

That’s no problem for Vadim Ivanov, a 55-year-old driver from the St. Petersburg City Maintenance Department. He does not trust the government or the healthcare system and believes the threat posed by Covid-19 is exaggerated.

“I’m not getting a vaccine because I don’t believe in the coronavirus; it’s all about cheating, ”said Mr. Ivanov, who doesn’t usually wear a mask and rarely distances himself socially. “People say it’s all bullshit, it’s all far-fetched, it’s all invented.”

To speed up the rollout, Russian authorities scrapped priority vaccination groups and opened the vaccination campaign to everyone in January. Vaccination centers have been set up in food courts, opera houses, and malls, and some outlets offer free ice cream for every shot.

“There is no shortage of vaccines,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, recently told reporters. “But you can’t say there’s a rush” to get a shot, he said. Officials expect demand for Sputnik V to increase as more Russians learn about the vaccine’s benefits. In addition to Sputnik V, Russia has approved two other Covid-19 vaccines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who regularly praises the vaccine on national television and praises it in his conversations with foreign leaders, has yet to be vaccinated himself. The Kremlin has said Mr Putin plans to get a vaccine in late summer or early fall after consulting doctors.

“The government needs to better communicate the benefits of the vaccine,” said Mr. Gopka. “And of course people would feel more comfortable if the head of state took it.”

The challenges of rolling out the shot across Russia’s vast landmass amid harsh winter conditions have also hampered the campaign. On Thursday, Putin said nine of Russia’s 85 regions had not yet started vaccinating.

Sputnik V’s shot faced challenges from the start. It was approved in August, just a few months after development began and before any large-scale clinical trials were conducted. When Russia started rolling it out in December, manufacturing problems meant that the country could only deliver a fraction of the doses the officials had initially promised.

A peer-reviewed study published last month in The Lancet, a British medical journal, found that the vaccine was 91.6% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 and had no serious side effects. Meanwhile, Russian drug manufacturers have recently ramped up production. Indeed, some analysts expect an abundance of vaccines if demand does not pick up.

Abroad, Russia has conducted a PR campaign, including posting video updates in English and maintaining a Twitter account for Sputnik V. According to US officials, Russian intelligence agencies have launched a campaign to undermine confidence in Pfizer. Inc.’s

and other Western vaccines, using online publications that have questioned the development and safety of the vaccines in recent months. The Kremlin denies these allegations.

More than 40 other countries have authorized the Sputnik V for emergency use. Members of the European Union Slovakia and Hungary have approved Sputnik V, and on Thursday, the bloc’s drug regulator began a formal review that could lead to approval of the shot.

But many Russians are still not convinced.

A poll released this week by the independent pollster Levada Center found that only 30% of Russians are willing to receive a Sputnik V injection, up from 38% in December, with many expressing concerns about possible side effects and doubts about the clinical trials.

“The vaccine has not yet been fully tested and [the mass vaccination campaign] is in fact a mass trial being conducted against the people of Russia without their knowledge, ”said Tatyana Andreyeva, a 39-year-old HR director from Kaliningrad. She said she will not be vaccinated.

Mrs. Andreyeva’s 10-year-old son fell ill with Covid-19 last October, but recovered quickly without infecting the rest of the family. “I don’t consider Covid to be a serious and highly contagious disease,” she said.

Globally, Russians are among the top vaccine skeptics. An Ipsos survey released in February found that 42% of Russians would receive a vaccine, compared to 71% in the US and 57% in France.

In addition to doubts about Sputnik V itself, analysts cite a general lack of confidence in the authorities and the health system.

According to a 2019 Gallup poll, only 37% of Russians are satisfied with the quality of their healthcare, compared to a global average of 65%.

After the end of the Soviet Union, funding for the health care system collapsed, many highly skilled medical professionals emigrated, and medical research slowed. In 2010, the government launched an ambitious plan to improve the quality of healthcare in Russia and modernize medical facilities. But by 2019, the number of hospitals and available beds fell, and officials said the quality of service had deteriorated sharply.

“No one has touched the system infrastructure since the late 1950s,” Veronika Skvortsova, then Health Minister, said in 2019.

Distrust in government is a legacy of Russia’s communist past, when Russian suspicion of authorities led many to rely on word of mouth and other informal sources of information, said Margarita Zavadskaya, political science researcher at the European University in St Petersburg.

The Levada survey found that two-thirds of the respondents believed that the coronavirus is a man-made biological weapon. Of the Russians who depend on family and friends for information, nearly three-quarters believe it is a biological weapon.

“There is a pattern of extremely low confidence in all kinds of official authorities, other political institutions and the healthcare system,” said Ms Zavadskaya.

Ms. Andreyeva in Kaliningrad said she is trying to avoid depending on Russian healthcare in general.

“There is no help there, with rare exceptions,” she said. “The principle is – help yourself.”

—Valentina Ochirova contributed to this article.

Write to Georgi Kantchev at [email protected]