Russia’s political/pandemic update: The roads we take
With less than three weeks left to the Duma elections, Russia’s political situation remained quiet as no major initiatives were announced either by the government or by its opponents on both flanks. Even though Russia’s daily COVID-19 infections rate steadily declined in August, having fallen to below 20K (from around 24K at the end of July), and some days the incidence rate approached 18K, the daily death toll remained high and fluctuated around 800 people.
Russia’s epidemiological situation differs markedly from that in developed countries; this divergence became noticeable a couple of months ago, while in August it turned into a stark contrast. As opposed to highly vaccinated countries, such as the UK, US, Israel, and several European countries where the incidence rate increased, Russia’s incidence rate declined. Similarly, statistics on daily deaths also looked different – they fell in highly vaccinated countries, while they increased in Russia. The daily death rate remain high as people are still very reluctant to get vaccinated. The vaccination options that the Russian government offered to the public were not so bad, vaccines were widely available and the vaccination process was organized without major shortcomings. However, nearly half of Russians either do not want to get vaccinated at all or have not made up their minds yet, and this is very different from many developed and even developing countries.
Despite some improvement of the epidemiological situation and the financial support offered by the government to various categories of citizens, various opinion polls show a steady decline in the popularity of the United Russia party. Some polls pointed to increased popularity of the Communist Party in the past couple of months. However, there are still many of those who have yet to define their political preferences. Overall, the socio-political situation in the country looks calm, so that the same four major parties that dominate the current parliament are likely to get seats in the new Duma. The question is whether Communists will gain or not.
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