Vladimir Putin asks army for help as Russia battles Covid-19 surge
- Troops may be needed to build field hospitals, president says, as infections top 40,000 a day
- Russia, one of the worst-hit countries in the world, reported almost 45,000 deaths in September
“I ask you to … continue to provide support to the civil medical service if needed. Maybe use your construction abilities because there is a need to keep building prefabricated medical facilities.”
Who to blame as world tops 5 million Covid-19 deaths?
Russia is one of the worst-hit countries in the world and a devastating wave this autumn has seen infections and deaths reach new records, with more than 1,000 fatalities per day.
A government tally recorded 1,178 deaths on Tuesday, a new record, and 39,008 cases.
Putin last month ordered a week-long nationwide workplace shutdown from October 30 that could be extended by regional authorities as they saw fit.
The Novgorod region northwest of Moscow became the first on Monday to say it would prolong this for a second week.
“During that week we will tighten requirements for various workplaces. A number of organisations will be closed,” regional governor Andrei Nikitin said.
The capital Moscow has imposed the strictest lockdown measures in more than a year, with only essential shops like pharmacies and supermarkets allowed to remain open.
Some pubs and other businesses have ignored the curbs, however, and travel agents have reported a boom in Russians taking foreign beach breaks to escape the restrictions at home.
With Covid-19 untamed, Russia suffers deadliest September since World War II
Anna Popova, head of the consumer health watchdog, told a government meeting: “The effect of the measures will not appear immediately. It will most likely require more time.”
Russia has reported more than 8.5 million infections since the start of the pandemic and deaths hit records on 21 days last month.
Some medical professionals say the country’s Covid-19 response has been handicapped by vaccine hesitancy, mixed messaging from the authorities, unreliable statistics and attempts to shift responsibility away from Moscow and on to the leaders of Russia’s republics and regions.
Ex-president and former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev warned in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily Monday there were was an urgent need to increase vaccination rates.
“If we do not find ways to convince people of their irresponsibility, even, to put it bluntly, their antisocial behaviour, we will face even more difficult times,” he said.
Authorities have been accused of downplaying the pandemic, and figures from statistics agency Rosstat last week showed nearly twice as many Covid deaths compared with the government tally.
Rosstat said 44,265 people died of coronavirus in September - nearly double the official government figure - bringing the agency’s total virus toll to nearly 450,000, the highest in Europe.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
