MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin says Russia is facing a surge in the number of seriously ill COVID-19 patients and needs to prepare for the worst-case scenarios.
It bugs me every time I see other countries’ medical emergency folks decked out in hazmat gear and real face masks while in the USA our workers are wearing flimsy plastic gowns and begging for masks from the ladies’ sewing circle at some little one-snake church.
At the end of the day, the countries lead by fascists - USA, Russia, China, are going to do the worst, with the wanna be fascists, England, Brazil being right behind them.
And places that have strong populist streaks and corrupt government and media, so that the public trust in health authorities is weak (see Italy, Spain) also did poorly (although in the end better than the fascist places).
The places that have done well are states which are lead by capable moderate politicians with a prgramatic streak, and a history of strong public institutions. CA and WA have done well in the US, Germany in Europe, and South Korea, Taiwan, and to an extent Singapore in Asia.
Approximately 35 million people ages 15 and older currently smoke . Russia has the largest adult smoking population in Europe. More than 60 percent of men and 22 percent women in Russia smoke . In 2016, 15 percent of Russia’s youth smoked.
This confirms my impression was that heavy smoking - > pack per day was not uncommon…
This makes the next days and weeks quite precarious for Russia
Russia had recorded 18,328 coronavirus cases and 148 deaths, as of Monday. Moscow and its surrounding region accounted for about two-thirds of all cases.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova reported to Putin that Russia has 40,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients and plans to increase the number to 95,000. She said infections have been growing steadily by 16%-18% a day.
At that rate, they will be out of hospital beds - all 95,000 of them - in 3-4 weeks.
18,328 cases today
36,000 - 6 days from now
72,000 - 12 days from now
144,000 - 18 days from now
288,000 - 24 days from now
You are absolutely correct …
I had occasion to go into the Respiratory floor in a first rate hospital … the protection protocol was sketchy at best - the " gown" was a flimsy thin plastic (think very very cheap disposable rain poncho that might be given away at an amusement park) no gloves, no shoe covers, no head/hair cover … & just a simple tie on mask.
This is not a slam of the institution - they were mortified… but it was the best that they had.
This crisis calls for a monumental upgrade of infection control methods in a whole host of areas in hospitals …
I suspect Putin, Johnson and Trump all took the same initial approach- minimize the risk, ignore the hazard, assume it’ll go away.
Even worse would be deliberately doing nothing in spite of the cost in lives.
We know trump was interested in “just letting the disease run it’s course”, that was also the UK’s first announced approach until soundly denounced by experts and the public - who knows what Putin’s approach has been to date?