Evening Medusa

Yuri Gagarin's flight into space is 60 years old. Is Russia really close to herd immunity. What "Hard Journey" is North Korea preparing for?

Good evening,

This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the important news of the day. And on Mondays also about what happened over the weekend. Would you like a sandwich? Here is one American who wanted so much that he spent $ 300 a month on fast food! At the same time, he wanted to save up for an apartment. The wife decided to help and started preparing sandwiches for her husband to eat at work and save money. But the husband set up a shady business: he sold sandwiches and still bought fast food. As you guessed, the scheme was revealed .

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Pulse

The main thing - point by point

• Alexei Navalny was transferred from the medical unit of the colony to a detachment. He is threatened with force-feeding.
• in Makhachkala Two employees of Navalny's headquarters disappeared : coordinator Eduard Ataev and his assistant Murad Manapov.
• The British channel Sky News showed the field camp of the Russian military in the Voronezh region. Ukraine has estimated the number of Russian troops near the eastern border at 40,000. The same number are in the Crimea.
• In St. Petersburg, business center caught fire the Nevskaya Manufactory . At least two people died.
• Dozhd journalists spoke to a woman who spoke about the “crucified boy” in 2014. She still insists that the story is true.

Texts of the day

Ten years ago, the first book by the writer Lev Danilkin about Yuri Gagarin was published. Now he wrote the second - and we talked about it

When asked directly why another book about Gagarin is needed, Danilkin replies that he was prompted to write a new book by his changed views on the relationship between the individual and the state. Also in this interview is the history of the very phrase about a god who is not visible in space (and other myths associated with Gagarin). And also an attempt to understand why the cult of the first cosmonaut in 60 years not only has not faded, but has become even brighter.

Of course, on the day of the 60th anniversary of Gagarin's flight into space, we published more than one text about it. Here are some more materials:

• 60 Lesser-Known Facts About the April 12, 1961 Flight, What Came Before and After
• Interviews of current and former Russian cosmonauts about the figure of Yuri Gagarin and why people are drawn to the stars
• Who is participating and who is leading the new space race - and what are the goals of different countries (including Luxembourg!)

Kim Jong-un called on the citizens of the DPRK to prepare for a new "Difficult Campaign". In the 90s, this was the name of the famine, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

North Korea has found itself in such an unenviable position because of the policies that the authorities have been pursuing for the past ten years. At first, the North Korean economy grew thanks to structural reforms, but Kim Jong-un decided to focus on strategic weapons. In particular, to make a missile capable of striking Washington. After each test, more and more severe sanctions were imposed on the DPRK, and Donald Trump quite unexpectedly made a decisive contribution to the collapse of Kim's plans . He has been criticized for being too lenient in his negotiations with Kim Jong-un, but at the 2019 Hanoi summit, the American president effectively ended North Korea's chances of lifting sanctions, at least in the medium term.

The coronavirus

What should Russia expect: a third wave or victory over the pandemic thanks to herd immunity?

Rospotrebnadzor is optimistic: there are more and more sick and vaccinated people in the country, which means that a new outbreak is unlikely. The Ministry of Health objects: the danger of the third wave has not gone anywhere, it’s just too early to talk about it. Similar disputes are going on in the world: the success of countries that quickly vaccinate citizens is contrasted with the example of Brazil, where instead of the expected herd immunity, the most powerful outbreak of the pandemic occurred. We understand what herd immunity is, whether it is achievable in principle, why everything went wrong in Brazil (it's not just about new strains) - and what can be said about what is happening in Russia based on the available data.

What is really happening with new strains of coronavirus in Russia

British and even South African strains have reached us. And although everyone knows that they are more contagious, this worries few people: Rospotrebnadzor reports only a hundred recorded cases of infection with the British version, while 8-9 thousand new cases are detected every day. We spoke with evolutionary biologist Georgy Bazykin and found out that in the last month alone, the proportion of the British strain has increased from 1 to 10 percent in Russia, and that this growth will continue at an accelerating pace. All in all, the future looks bleak .

Other news about coronavirus:

• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has announced a successful trial of a drug that protects against the onset of symptoms of COVID-19. Donald Trump was treated with this drug.
• In 2021-2023, Russia will spend 76 billion rubles on vaccinations.
• The director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of China acknowledged the low effectiveness of Chinese vaccines. It varies from 49 to 79%.

Podcast "What Happened"

Ukraine has again started talking about the desire to join NATO. But it is not easy even without the problem of Crimea and Donbass

The guest of the new episode is Pavel Luzin, candidate of political sciences, military policy researcher. We discuss together with him why joining the alliance is a big foreign and domestic political problem for Ukraine. We also find out how deep the contradictions within NATO are - and is it true that Russia has the opportunity to attack one country of the alliance, avoiding war with others.

Listen to What Happened on Meduza . And subscribe to Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Yandex.Music and other podcast services.

Video of the day

In Veliky Novgorod, the history of space exploration was shown with the help of 500 drones

Drones in the night sky lined up in different shapes and showed the launch of the Gagarin rocket and the separation of its stages, as well as the first artificial Earth satellite and the International Space Station. In general, look, this is really an impressive sight .

💼 Newsletter Sponsor

For 60 years - after the first manned flight into space - people managed to walk on the moon, send spacecraft to Mars and settle in near-Earth orbit. The universe has a little less secrets now, and some of them are in this test . We came up with it together with the Yandex. Zen with the participation of her bloggers who write about human space exploration and terrestrial scientific discoveries. Cosmonautics Day is an occasion to check what you know about it. Dare!

Today I just want to say: "Let's go!" Your Medusa