TY - JOUR

T1 - COVID-19 in Russia

T2 - Should we expect a novel response to the novel coronavirus?

AU - King, Elizabeth J.

AU - Dudina, Victoria I.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Russia provides an important case study in its COVID-19 response by a country that has one of the largest epidemics, increasingly authoritarian government policies, and important domestic and international political influence. In this article, we describe and explain Russia’s public health and social policy responses to COVID-19–earlier in the pandemic when the concern was the border with China, to later when there were confirmed cases in all regions in the country. In the past, Russia has served as an interesting case for exploring global health politics and infectious diseases. Thus, we position our analysis of the COVID-19 response through a reflection on infectious disease control in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia. We explore the following: government control, contention with official statistics, (dis-)information, (mis-)trust, and vulnerabilities of medical care workers. We also discuss how Russia is reinforcing its role in global health during the pandemic, for example through vaccine development and foreign humanitarian aid. We situate our analysis in the historical, political, and social contexts to help explain Russia’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

AB - Russia provides an important case study in its COVID-19 response by a country that has one of the largest epidemics, increasingly authoritarian government policies, and important domestic and international political influence. In this article, we describe and explain Russia’s public health and social policy responses to COVID-19–earlier in the pandemic when the concern was the border with China, to later when there were confirmed cases in all regions in the country. In the past, Russia has served as an interesting case for exploring global health politics and infectious diseases. Thus, we position our analysis of the COVID-19 response through a reflection on infectious disease control in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia. We explore the following: government control, contention with official statistics, (dis-)information, (mis-)trust, and vulnerabilities of medical care workers. We also discuss how Russia is reinforcing its role in global health during the pandemic, for example through vaccine development and foreign humanitarian aid. We situate our analysis in the historical, political, and social contexts to help explain Russia’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

KW - coronavirus

KW - COVID-19

KW - global health

KW - government response

KW - infectious disease control

KW - Russia

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102944332&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ee2c50db-9bca-3c97-bfda-f13448e4077d/

U2 - 10.1080/17441692.2021.1900317

DO - 10.1080/17441692.2021.1900317

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85102944332

VL - 16

SP - 1237

EP - 1250

JO - Global Public Health

JF - Global Public Health

SN - 1744-1692

IS - 8-9

ER -