Pandemic/political update: economic woes dominate, the epidemiological situation deteriorates
Since early September, when Russia’s daily incidence rate fluctuated around 17-18K people, the number of registered cases doubled, having jumped to 36K on October 21 and over 37K on October 22. Vaccination remains slow, despite the high daily death toll – over 1K in recent days. Note that the death toll number is a kind of flash estimate, which is usually revised higher once monthly demographic statistics are released by Rosstat later on. The absolute majority of Russians are seemingly defying not only government regulations, but also common sense.
The authorities introduced a non-working week at the start of November to tackle the problem. On top of that, in recent days, the governors of several regions decided to apply tougher measures, such as introducing compulsory vaccination for wider categories of employees and various restrictions for unvaccinated people. However, the federal government remains more restrained, having verbally insisted that vaccination should only be voluntary. The task of finding ways to vaccinate people was delegated to local authorities. These restrictions are likely to result in slower economic growth in 4Q21 than was anticipated earlier.
Opinion polls show what bothers Russians and how people see themselves. People were asked to name several problems that worry them. The range of issues is rather broad, but dominated by purely economic woes, such as inflation and poverty. Corruption and power abuse combined are ranked almost as worrying as the pandemic, and the latter many people still don’t take seriously. An absolute majority of the country’s population is not in favor of the market economy, and only just slightly over forty percent consider themselves as sharing democratic values and convictions.
Now read on...
Register to sample a report