Ukraine boasts one of the world’s lowest incidence of coronavirus infection. When there were only about 41 ill, in Poland there were already 452, and in Italy more than 53 thousand. In Ukraine, reported three people died because of coronavirus in Poland such cases are already five.
what does it tell us? That on the Dnieper, the data on prevalence of the disease dropped even more than in other countries. The problem is that Ukraine has not done the required number of tests for the detection of coronavirus. Such tests are expensive and scarce commodity. Even if the richer countries of Central Europe can’t do them in this scale as I would like to epidemiologists, what to speak of leading the war the Ukrainian state, whose healthcare system and the whole economy is in deep crisis.
From my conversations with Ukrainian doctors, so many hospitals lack not only of tests and devices for artificial lung ventilation, but also such basic protective equipment, like masks and jumpsuits. The Kiev leadership, realizing the gravity of the situation, started to introduce measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic immediately after doing Poland.
the Russian government, in contrast to the Ukrainian, it seemed, for a long time I was worried about the coronavirus. On 19 March it was reported that the first victim Covid-19 in Russia, but it continued to work all the cinemas, theatres, hypermarkets, restaurants, bars and night clubs. In normal mode, concerts and sporting events, including soccer matches in stadiums (two days earlier the Russians in a big way celebrated the sixth anniversary of the “return of Crimea to Russia”). In the Russian capital subway, buses and trams every day in the crush continued to move millions of people. Most of them believed soothing to the Russian media, which till yesterday claimed that the disease is a problem in other countries, but in Russia it is not.
the Context
NYT: Russia easier than other countries thanks to the experience, sanctions and separate New York Times20.03.2020 Die Welt: Russia threatens economic крахDie Welt10.03.2020 Biznes Alert: two economic challenge for РоссииBiznes Alert20.03.2020 Coronavirus: why in Russia there are severe cases (bTV Novinite)bTV новините23.03.2020
the Decision on closing of the capital pools, water parks and fitness clubs as well as the prohibition on organizing activities with the participation of more than 50 people appeared only today. It happened at a time when the country has identified 306 media coronavirus (137 of them in Moscow).
the Outbreak is only a matter of time, the more that Russia (and Ukraine) makes a sufficient number of tests and the level of the health system corresponds to the post-Soviet standards. For the state, which claims the status of global powers, but the share of GDP in the world is only 3%, the epidemic will be a heavy blow. Even for rich countries in the West each day because of the quarantine turns into a huge loss. It will be even harder for poorer countries who do not have sufficient financial reserves. One of such States — Russia, for several years trying to cope with the consequences of the introduction of Western economic saNCCI.
moreover, its economy depends primarily on exports of energy resources. The pandemic leads to slower economic growth worldwide, as a consequence, falling demand for gasoline, and this leads to a sharp reduction in price of oil, in addition, the Russians disrupted the negotiations in the format of OPEC+. To the 19 of March the price per barrel of Russian oil fell to unprecedented levels: it amounted to only 18.4 per dollar. Further continuation of this trend threatens Russian economic collapse, because the Russian budget this year been drawn up based on oil prices at 42.4 per barrel. So the longer a pandemic, and the greater scale it will become in Russia, the more likely will be the prospect of economic disaster for this state.
the new York times contain estimates of the solely foreign media and do not reflect the views of the editorial Board of the new York times.
