How many people have already vaccinated in Russia? The most honest answer: no one knows

"Medusa" found out where the statements of millions of vaccinated

Vladimir Putin ordered from January 18 to move from “large -scale” vaccination to “mass”: apparently, now everyone will be able to vaccinate without restrictions. However, it will be difficult to sharply increase the rate of vaccination: in the vast majority of the regions of Russia, even large -scale vaccination did not begin, and people still doubt the safety of vaccinations. It is still unclear how many citizens were actually vaccinated against Covid - officials do not publish these numbers, and it seems that no one has accurate data at all. Most often they refer to the message of the Russian Direct Investment Fund ( RDIP ) that a total of one and a half million people are vaccinated. The fund does not disclose where it got this data and on the basis of which they are designed; There is no confirmation of these information from other sources. At the same time, according to the same RDIP, exactly the same amount of “satellite V” - one and a half million - was produced and introduced into a civil circulation in Russia by the beginning of 2021. Medusa tried to find out the real scale of vaccination in the country - and what is the problem with the publication of data on this.

How many people have already instilled in Russia?

This is unknown - and perhaps no one. Data on the number of vaccinated are not officially disclosed; There is only fragmentary information of varying degrees of freshness from several dozen regions and a pair of departments.

Several officials informed Medusa that the consolidated data on the number of vaccine from Covid will soon appear on the STOPKOronavirus.rf website, but when exactly and in what form it is unknown. The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, responsible for collecting information about vaccination, has not yet given the final consent to such a publication.

Only the Ministry of Health has the consolidated data on the number of vaccinated from the Covid-19 in Russia, which collects them in a special register, where they are introduced by medical institutions that vaccinate. But, as Meduza explained to the source, close to the developers of the Sputnik V vaccine, the information in this register is entered with a delay (with which one, he did not say). In addition, data on vaccinated employees of a number of departments that vaccinate independently are not entered into the register.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIPI), which said that on January 10, the vaccine from Covid was vaccinated one and a half million people, did not reveal the source of this information; The data was provided by the Ministry of Health, the representative of the fund told Medusa. He refused to report whether citizens of other countries who received the Russian vaccine (for example, Belarus or Argentina) are included in this number.

“It is difficult to seriously relate to this [statement]. You definitely can’t collect information about where the vaccine went, because it is classified. One and a half million is a plus or minus that which was released into civilian circulation, ”the source close to the Ministry of Health commented on the Message of the RDIP.

“The RDIP and [the developer of the vaccine, the Hamale Research Center does not have access to the register, they act only as the quality controllers of the vaccine. The number of doses that is called in the RDIP is doses that are received into the civil circulation, which is not equal to the number of vaccinated. The number of vaccinated to him does not correspond to him, and no one knows him yet, ”confirms a source close to the developers of the vaccine.

According to Medusa, the number of doses issued into a civilian turnover coincides with the number of Russian enterprises produced by Russian enterprises; Moreover, the main part was produced at the end of 2020 at new capacities. In the middle of December, there were only 300 thousand doses produced by the Gamaleya Center and the Moscow company General. Then the doses made by the St. Petersburg "Biocad" began to arrive. The company representative told Medusa that at the end of the year it released 1.1 million doses (both components are included in the dose). According to the interlocutor in the federal government, at the end of December there were one and a half million full doses of the vaccine in Russia.

How many vaccines entered the regions?

In early January, the Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko called the same number of one and a half million - saying that there were so many doses of the vaccine to the Russian regions (to all regions, including Moscow and St. Petersburg). The Minister also said that 800 thousand people have already been vaccinated - that is, almost half the less than one and a half million people named a week later. But this number is doubtful when trying to confirm it from open sources and from sources in the regions.

So, according to the discovery analyst of Alexander Dragan, who collected all the available messages of the regions (and reported on the number of only 44 regions out of 85 vaccinated), 111 thousand people were vaccinated.

• The regions are the leaders where there are warehouses with a finished vaccine: Moscow (data were not published from the end of December, when, according to the mayor of Sergei Sobyanin, 50 thousand people were injected), Petersburg (13.7 thousand vaccinated on January 11) and the Moscow region (18 thousand for January 13).

Update. After the release of this material, the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that in the capital, on January 14, 140 thousand people were vaccinated.

• In other regions, everything is either worse (six to seven thousand vaccinated in the Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar Territory and the Sverdlovsk Region), or very bad.
• Even in such a large region with a large population as the Nizhny Novgorod region (more than three million people), only three thousand people are vaccinated in the second decade of January, a source in the local government told Meduza.
• About two thousand people are vaccinated in the Kaliningrad region, a source in the regional government said.
• In recent days, the regions reported that the doses of vaccines - several thousand pieces - continue to arrive.

Alexander Dragan extrapolled fragmentary data from the regions throughout Russia; In his opinion, from the beginning of the vaccination campaign and under the second decade of January 2021, about 300 thousand people were vaccinated on a common basis (that is, along the Ministry of Health). This is much less than the number of people from the “risk groups”, who were going to instill in “large -scale vaccination”: only medical workers in Russia are about 1.8 million .

But data in all regions can be incomplete. A significant part of the doses of the vaccine is not distributed through the Ministry of Health, but through other federal departments and large state -owned companies. At the same time, as Meduza explained, an informed official, vaccinated according to these programs, does not fall into the register of vaccinated Ministry of Health. “Those who fall under the law on the protection of personal data - employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, the Russian Guard, the FSB, and the prosecutor's office are not entered into the register. The remaining departments do not get there, since they belong to the private healthcare system. Formally, they must submit data to the Ministry of Health, but so far they are not done, ”he says.

• So, at the end of November, the Ministry of Defense unfolded its vaccination program. It was assumed that by the end of the year 100 thousand people would be used, and a total of 400 thousand. On December 10, the Ministry reported that 10 thousand military were already vaccinated. Since then, consolidated data on the campaign has not been reported; It is known that at the end of 2020, 10 thousand military in one of the five military districts - central. Thus, it is unlikely that the total number of vaccinated military exceeds 100 thousand people.
• The Russian Railways on January 13 “Medusa” reported that vaccination in departmental institutions began on December 23; The number of already vaccinated in the company refused to report; Only doses were declared - 1200 in Moscow departmental clinics and 400 in Kaliningrad.
• Representatives of the Russian Guard, which also began their own vaccination campaign in December, did not answer the “jellyfish” questions about the number of vaccinated.
• The Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) is conducting several vaccination programs-from the participants of the cosmonauts detachment and contacting Roskomos employees to the Russian national football team. However, it is unlikely that the number of vaccinated according to these programs is calculated even hundreds. The FMBA did not respond to the request of "Medusa".
• In addition, part of the doses of vaccines is supplied under commercial contracts. However, deliveries are measured by hundreds of pieces. So, in the Network of the Medsi clinics, Medusa reported that on January 13, 653 people were vaccinated on a commercial basis. A similar order of numbers and in others - few - clinics conducting commercial vaccination.

Thus, not all vaccinated, but the number of unaccounted people is unlikely much exceeds 100 thousand people.

Perhaps officials (although this is not related to the epidemiological situation in Russia) includes in the total number of foreigners vaccinated by the “satellite V”: Argentines, Belarusians and citizens of other countries where the vaccine is delivered. In Argentina alone, more than 150 thousand people are vaccinated with the first dose.

Is these numbers a lot or a little?

Trackers conducting the calculation of vaccinated to different countries take into account the data of the RDIP - that is, all the same one and a half million grafted / released into doses. Against the background of other countries, this is a rather solid number: if it is true, Russia enters the five countries with the largest absolute number of vaccinated (immediately after the USA, China, Great Britain and Israel).

By the number of per capita, Russia would be in 11th place, overtaking most of the European Union countries. And 300-500 thousand vaccinated - this is a very weak result (especially per capita) - at the level of Argentina, which itself purchases the vaccine from Russia, and worse than in most EU countries.

Why can't you vaccinate faster?

Vladimir Putin, declaring a new stage of vaccination (“mass” instead of “large -scale”), mentioned the main, from his point of view, the dignity of the Russian vaccine - technology. “The Russian vaccine, this is completely obvious, we thought so before, but now this practice shows - she, I think that the best in the world is generally,” he said . -Thank God it does not require any emergency conditions, such as minus 50, minus 70 degrees [as in the case of the most popular vaccine in the world from Pfizer and Biontech]. Everything is much simpler and more effective for us. ”

But the sources of Medusa, familiar with the technology of working with the vaccine, believe that there are difficulties and they are related, including with the conditions of transportation and storage. “Satellite V” must be constantly stored and transported at a temperature of minus 18 degrees. “There were no frost capacities - they were created in the country,” says a source close to the Ministry of Health.

The Fontanka publication described these difficulties as intact: Sberbank’s “daughter”, the immunotechnology company, which, by decree of the government, became the only Vaccine supplier to the regions - experienced great difficulties with the search for refrigeration equipment that could stably maintain the desired temperature at all stages of storage and transportation.

As a result, the Americans established work with the Pfizer vaccine, which requires frost to minus 70 degrees, faster than Russia with the “companion V”: in the USA and other countries the vaccine is transported and stored on dry ice; In Russia, for this method of storage, there are not enough plastic containers that would withstand such low temperatures, writes Fontanka.

In addition, the authorities for a long time could not calculate how much and in which region it was necessary to put doses. “There is a technique - it provides for the number of those who need to be vaccinated; Correction coefficient associated with the level of current incidence; The coefficient associated with the presence of a sufficient number of vaccination points. This is an accounting task with a large number of parameters. If the chief epidemiologist believes that there is more vaccine, the region has enough authority to create additional vaccination points and argue the federal Ministry of Health, which must be obtained more. If the region is proactive, it organizes the process and knocks out more vaccines, ”says a source about the organizational difficulties of the campaign.

The interlocutor of Medusa in the leadership of one of the northern regions says that the public promises of the federal authorities diverge from real supplies: small parties - in the amount of several hundred to several thousand doses - arrive in the regions late. “So far, doctors and medical personnel have been vaccinated so far, and it is still very far from mass vaccination,” he says. According to the interlocutor, the authorities promise to put larger parties of the vaccine in February.

Finally, it seems that so far it has not been possible to solve another serious problem - the reluctance of people to vaccinate. The interlocutor of the Medusa in the government of one of the northern regions says that the inhabitants of its region are not in a hurry to be vaccinated: "After the opening of the vaccination record for everyone, only a few thousand people wanted to get used to it."

How much should you instill - and why rush with vaccination?

Mass vaccination can have two main goals.

The first is the intention to stop the epidemic. But due to the fact that the Russian authorities could not quickly establish mass vaccination, Russia may not achieve this goal. That is, the epidemic will stop, but not thanks to vaccinations, but due to the fact that most of the population will become infected and immunity.

In theory, the epidemic should nullify after the threshold of “collective immunity” will be reached in the population (for example, on the country's scale). At this moment, the virus will not have enough “susceptible” goals - people who do not have immunity to it - so that it can spread exponally. Thus, the spread of the virus will fade itself. Immunity can be obtained in two ways: by infecting the virus or receiving a vaccine from it.

According to Medusa estimates, in Russia at the end of December 35–40% of the population became infected and received immunity.

How did we think?

It is difficult to calculate exactly what the threshold of collective immunity in coronavirus is difficult. It depends on the number R₀ - the original ability of the virus to be transmitted from person to person; This number can be represented as the average number of infected from one infected before this infected does not recover or die. The problem is that such an initial property is almost impossible to determine: from the very beginning of the epidemic of the authorities and the citizens themselves tried to reduce the speed of transferring the virus and this “distorted statistics”.

One of the purest “experiments” was placed in the Brazilian Amazon, where, with an almost complete absence of opposition measures, the epidemic spread quickly until 60–66% of the population infected. This corresponds to the number R₀ in 2.5–3. The epidemic did not end there: the infection continued after reaching the threshold of collective immunity, but every day there were less and less.

You can (very rudely) calculate the share of those who “prontact”, that is, infected and acquired immunity in Russia. To do this, you need to know the real number of dead after infection with coronavirus. Official data is not suitable here: in Russia - and not only here - data on the deaths from coronavirus are underestimated. However, there are quite accurate data on deaths from April to November - the so -called excess mortality , which is determined by the issued death certificates from the registry offices. According to it, Russia in November (no more fresh information has not yet) went to third place in the world after the United States and Brazil. In total, from April to November 2020, excess mortality amounted to about 242.5 thousand people. And all (or almost all) these deaths were associated with coronavirus.

It is known that excess mortality from April to November is six times higher than the official mortality from coronavirus. If this ratio has been preserved to this day, then from December 1 to January 13, another 140.8 thousand people died in Russia. And from the beginning of the epidemic - 383.3 thousand. Suppose that the real mortality (IFR, the ratio of all dead and all - including asymptomatic and unbearable - infected) is not very different from the epidemic calculated in China and other countries - 0.66%: this means that the number of dead (383.3 thousand) corresponds to 57 million infected and received immunity. This is a little less than 40% of the population of Russia.

It must be remembered that by deaths you can calculate the number of infected ones not for today's date, but on 20–22 days ago - on average, so much passes from infection to death.

The same method can calculate the number of daily infections in Russia: at the end of December, 430–440 thousand Russians were “contacted” daily with the virus. If the pace of infection is preserved, the threshold of collective immunity will be achieved after 70–90 days. It is unlikely that in such a short time, vaccination will reach the level of several hundred thousand per day, which can seriously affect the speedy achievement of collective immunity.

Although, if the government fulfills its promises, the help will be quite significant. Now the governors are talking about the supply of several tens of thousands of doses to the middle region until the end of February. With this pace, you can make a hundred with a small vaccination throughout the country every day.

The second goal of the start of mass vaccination is to reduce the number of deaths and the load on the healthcare system. Каждый миллион прививок (если верить заявлению разработчиков, что вакцина на 100% снижает вероятность тяжелого течения болезни) снизит число смертей от коронавируса более чем на шесть тысяч. Эффект будет еще более заметным, если прививать группы риска — прежде всего, пожилых людей. И чем быстрее вакцинация станет действительно массовой, тем больше она уменьшит негативные последствия эпидемии.

Авторы: Дмитрий Кузнец , Светлана Рейтер , Анастасия Якорева и Фарида Рустамова

Editor: Valery Igumenov