Russian Prime Minister Mishustin diagnosed with coronavirus

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MOSCOW: Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (Apr 30) that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and was temporarily stepping down to recover.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...ustin-diagnosed-covid-19-coronavirus-12693156

Mishustin, 54, suggested that First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov serve as acting prime minister in his absence. Putin, who appointed Mishustin in January, supported the proposal.

Mishustin, who has been one of the main coordinators of Russia's response to the coronavirus, is the first high-ranking Russian official to publicly say they have the virus.

He broke the news hours after the number of confirmed cases of the virus in Russia surged past the 100,000 mark.

Mishustin told Putin about his diagnosis during a televised video conference.


"I have found out that the coronavirus tests I had done returned with a positive result," said Mishustin, who was appointed by Putin in January. "I need to self-isolate, and follow doctors' instructions. This is necessary for the safety of my colleagues."

Mishustin said he would remain in contact with members of the government and Putin by phone and video conference despite his condition.

"What is happening to you can happen to anyone," Putin replied matter-of-factly. "When you get to the hospital, call me. I'll be waiting for your call."

The broadcast of the meeting, which showed the men on split screens, lasted just under four minutes.

Mishustin will spend his self-isolation period at a hospital under the supervision of doctors, his spokesman Boris Belyakov said, without disclosing the exact location where the prime minister would be treated.

Belyakov added that all those who had been in contact with Mishustin would go into self-isolation and be tested for the virus.

Russia's nationwide tally of confirmed coronavirus cases surged past the 100,000 mark earlier on Thursday after a record daily rise in new infections.

Russia this week overtook China and Iran in the number of confirmed cases arising from the global pandemic.

Russia has so far reported 1,073 coronavirus-related deaths, a figure far lower than many of the hardest-hit countries however.

Putin has warned the peak of the outbreak has yet to come, and the authorities have said there could be a new spike in cases if the population flouts lockdown measures during public holidays in early May.

The world's largest country by territory, Russia has been on lockdown since Putin announced the closure of most public spaces in late March to limit the scope for the virus to spread.

Putin and the Cabinet have been holding remote meetings to avoid contact.

 

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Wary Russian doctors count their own dead from COVID-19

MOSCOW: When Russian cardiologist Alexei Erlikh and several colleagues started a project to keep track of medics who had died from the coronavirus, he never expected there would be so many names.

Launched last week, the database already lists more than 70 dead doctors, nurses and lab technicians, and the number is expected to grow as Russia approaches its peak of infections.


"A lot of colleagues are dying. It's pretty hard to see a new name every day," Erlikh told AFP.

"There will be more victims among medics. The list is far from complete."

The main goal of the "Remembrance List" is to honour the medics. But Erlikh said he and his colleagues also felt they had to take matters into their own hands because they don't trust that authorities will provide reliable information about health workers' deaths.

Russia is registering several thousand new coronavirus infections a day and, with more than 99,000, has surpassed China and Iran in the number of cases.


Its fatality rate, with 972 deaths as of Wednesday, is low in comparison to countries like Italy, Spain and the United States.

Except, according to the Remembrance List, when it comes to medical workers.

Of some 27,000 deaths in Italy, 151 were doctors. In China, 40 medical staff are registered as having died from the virus and in the United States it was 27 as of Apr 9, the latest figure available.

The Remembrance List as of Wednesday showed 74 medical staff who had died from the virus. Seventy died in Russia, with more than half from hard-hit Moscow and the surrounding region.

Four were from neighbouring Belarus - whose authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has dismissed the coronavirus epidemic as a "psychosis" and refused to impose a general lockdown.

"MEDICAL COMMUNITY UNITED"

Erlikh, who heads the cardiac ICU at Moscow City Hospital No. 29, spoke to AFP from home where he was self-isolating after testing positive for the coronavirus.

He said at least 70 per cent of his unit also tested positive.

Since the start of the epidemic, medics in Russia have complained of shortages of protective gear and testing kits, as well as an unwillingness by some hospitals and clinics to test their staff because they do not want them quarantined.

As a result, they say, many hospitals have become hotspots of the coronavirus.

Neurosurgeon Alexei Kashcheyev said the doctors' list of casualties was the latest piece of evidence that Russia's under-funded health care system was utterly unprepared to deal with a major crisis.

"This was expected," he said, adding that complaints of overworked and underpaid staff have fallen on deaf ears for years.

Kashcheyev said he personally knew two victims from the list, which he praised and called more reliable than any official statistics.

"Our medical community is pretty united. We are exchanging information related to our safety and the safety of our families and patients," he said.

He said he hopes the list may help doctors' families receive financial help from authorities in the future.

While officials acknowledge shortages of protective gear, they stress that the country has worked hard to scale up testing capacities and say that Russia's mortality rate of less than one percent is among the lowest in the world.

"SOUND THE ALARM"

But critics allege that Russia is under-reporting coronavirus fatalities and no official death toll for medical workers has been released.

The health ministry did not respond to an AFP request for the number of coronavirus casualties among health personnel or reaction to the doctors' list.

Anastasia Vasilyeva, the head of the Doctors' Alliance, an independent medical workers' union, accused officials of seeking to downplay deaths of health personnel.

She said the doctors' tally appeared to be a significant undercount, pointing out that some regions were not represented on the list and estimating that at least 200 medical workers had died in Russia from the virus.

"I myself can add around 10 names to that list. I am getting messages every day: 'This person died. And that person died'," said Vasilyeva, whose group is linked with opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Critics say the growing death toll should be a wakeup call for the Kremlin which has prioritised defence spending over health care.

"When this is all over I think we - both medics and society - should sound the alarm about this problem and demand that it be solved," said Kashcheyev.

"We have the right to do it."