Putin to get Covid vaccine — but the Kremlin refuses to say which one

LONDON — Russian President Vladimir Putin is anticipated to obtain a coronavirus shot on Tuesday, as intrigue surrounds the nation’s vaccine technique.

The Kremlin mentioned it might not reveal the title of the vaccine that Putin will obtain, solely that it might be one of three Russian-made photographs.

“We are deliberately not saying which shot the president will get, noting that all three Russian vaccines are absolutely reliable and effective,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov advised reporters, Reuters reported Tuesday.

There are three Russian vaccines — Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac — with the latter two solely lately gaining emergency approval.

The Russian president is probably going to get the vaccine Tuesday night, Peskov added. It’s unclear whether or not he will likely be filmed receiving the shot as Peskov famous that Putin didn’t like the thought of being vaccinated on digital camera.

The vaccination comes as the highlight falls on the nation’s vaccine technique. On Monday, Putin lauded multi-million greenback worldwide gross sales of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine but the nation’s personal rollout seems sluggish, and contrasts sharply with the excessive numbers of vaccines destined for the worldwide market.

There have been stories that Russia’s personal manufacturing capability is low and Putin appeared to nod to this on Monday. He mentioned that Russia wanted to ramp up vaccine manufacturing for home use and that supplying home wants was a precedence, in accordance to Reuters.

He famous that 4.three million folks in the nation had already obtained two doses of the vaccine. This is considerably greater than, for instance, the U.Ok. which has given round 2.three million folks each doses to date, but Russia was the first nation in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine (Sputnik V) again in August 2020 — the U.Ok. authorized its first shot in early December.

Russia does have quite a lot of logistical challenges to overcome when rolling out a vaccine. It is the largest nation in the world and has a inhabitants of round 144 million folks unfold throughout a territory that spans Europe and northern Asia.

In early March, Putin famous that each one but 9 Russian areas had began to deploy the vaccine, with delays linked to “problems with logistics, distribution (and) locations,” the Moscow Times reported.

Global knowledge on vaccination applications exhibits that Russia lags many different nations in its personal home rollout, with the variety of single doses administered in Russia hovering simply above the variety of these given in Bangladesh, in accordance to Our World in Data.

The vaccination knowledge is made extra salient provided that Russia has been hit so badly by the pandemic: It has recorded the fourth-highest variety of circumstances in the world (over 4.Four million) and over 94,000 folks have died from Covid in the nation, in accordance to Johns Hopkins University.

Another large concern hampering Russia’s rollout is vaccine hesitancy amongst its residents. Daragh McDowell, head of Europe and principal Russia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, advised CNBC that the nation’s decrease vaccination numbers are, “probably much more a result of lack of willingness on the part of popular scepticism over the vaccine than a lack of supply.”

He famous that the newest knowledge from the Levada middle, an unbiased pollster in Russia, means that solely 30% of Russians “are willing to get vaccinated, a number that’s actually gone down since last year.”

“This is mainly due to worries about side effects and that the vaccine hasn’t been tested enough – in other words, while the Kremlin got a propaganda boost from getting the vaccine out first, this was at the cost of doubts over its safety,” McDowell famous.

Sputnik V was initially solely approved in Russia for folks 18-60 years outdated, which means that Putin, who’s 68, was too outdated to obtain it. Further trials in senior residents discovered that the vaccine was protected in folks aged 60 and over, nonetheless, and that age group can now obtain the shot.

“The fact that Putin has waited this long to be vaccinated himself will not have gone unnoticed and will have contributed to these doubts,” McDowell added.

“The president’s vaccination will convince some Russians of the vaccine’s efficacy and safety (but) high levels of social distrust and conspiratorial thinking will blunt it’s impact.”

He highlighted that the identical polling knowledge which confirmed 30% of Russians have been prepared to get vaccinated additionally revealed that just about two thirds believed Covid was artificially developed as a organic weapon.

Another facet of Russia’s vaccine program that is drawing consideration is the excessive numbers of worldwide gross sales of its vaccine. On Monday, Putin confirmed that Russia had signed worldwide gross sales offers for Sputnik V doses for 700 million folks.

RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund which backed Sputnik V’s improvement and deployment, mentioned on Tuesday that Sputnik V had now been authorized in 56 nations, with Vietnam the newest to be part of the record. Several nations in Eastern Europe, similar to Hungary and Slovakia, have additionally ordered Sputnik V doses.

Meanwhile, Europe’s medicines regulator began a rolling assessment of Sputnik V earlier this month.

Verisk Maplecroft’s McDowell highlighted that though exports of 700 million doses was “an extremely ambitious number,” it seemingly consists of does produced overseas, in India and South Korea for instance, below license.

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine was authorized by Russia’s well being regulator in August final yr earlier than scientific trials have been concluded, prompting skepticism amongst specialists that it may not meet strict security and efficacy requirements. Some specialists argued that the Kremlin was keen to declare victory in the race to develop a Covid vaccine, a cost it leveled at different nations. Russia has repeatedly mentioned its vaccine is the goal of anti-Russian sentiment.

Russia appeared to be vindicated in early February, when an interim evaluation of part three scientific trials of the shot, involving 20,000 members, was revealed in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet. It discovered that the vaccine was 91.6% efficient in opposition to symptomatic Covid-19 an infection.

In an accompanying article in the Lancet, Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, England, famous that “the development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for unseemly haste. But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated, which means another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19.”