SAMARA, Russia – She burst into the hospital’s morgue and the bodies were everywhere, about a dozen of them in black bags on portables. She goes straight to the autopsy room and begs the guard in a black jacket: “Can I talk to the doctor who opened my father?”
Olga Kagarlitskaya’s father had been admitted to a coronavirus ward at the hospital weeks earlier. Now he was gone, cause of death: ‘viral pneumonia, unspecified.’ Me. Kagarlitskaya, who recorded the scene on her smartphone, wanted to know the truth. But the guard, hands in pockets, sends her away.
There were thousands of similar cases in Russia last year, the government’s own statistics show. At least 300,000 more people died during the coronavirus pandemic last year than reported in Russia’s most official statistics.
Not all of the deaths were necessarily due to the virus. But they believe President Vladimir V. Putin’s argument that the country managed the virus better than most. In fact, a New York Times analysis of death rates shows that deaths in Russia during the pandemic last year were 28 percent higher than normal – an increase in death rates than in the United States and most countries in Europe.
“People did not know the objective situation,” she said. Kagarlitskaya said. “And if you do not know the objective situation, you are not afraid.”
For most of the past year, Russia has focused more on the public relations and economic aspects of the pandemic than on fighting the virus. After a hard-fought two-month lockout last spring, the government largely lifted restrictions last summer, a boon to public opinion and the economy, though the disease has spread faster.
By the fall, Russian scientists had developed a Covid vaccine that was widely regarded as one of the best in the world – but the Kremlin placed greater emphasis on using the Sputnik V shot to gain geopolitical marks rather than to immunize its own population.
Perhaps, however, the strongest sign of the state’s priorities is the minimization of the death toll from the coronavirus – a move that many critics say is keeping many of the public in the dark about the dangers of the disease and its importance. to get a vaccine.
When asked to summarize 2020 at his news conference at the end of the year in December, Mr. Putin tested statistics showing that the Russian economy suffered less than that of many other countries. Even when Europe introduced slot machines in the fall and winter, Russians were largely free to pack nightclubs, restaurants, theaters, and pubs.
But Mr. Putin has said nothing about the human toll of the pandemic – one that is only now coming into full view in the dry monthly release of his own government’s statistics agency.
The official death toll from Russian coronavirus of 102,649 per Saturday – reported on state television and the World Health Organization – is much lower when adapted for the population, than that of the United States and most of Western Europe.
However, the official statistics agency Rosstat tells a very different story, comparing deaths from all causes. According to a Times analysis of historical data, Russia saw a jump of 360,000 deaths above normal from last April to December. Rosstat figures for January and February this year show that the number is now well above 400,000.
In the United States, with more than twice the population of Russia, such “excessive deaths” have numbered about 574,000 since the onset of the pandemic. According to the scale, which is considered by many demographers to be the most accurate way to determine the total toll of the virus, the pandemic has killed about one in every 400 people in Russia, compared to one in every 600 people in the United States.
“It is difficult to find a less developed country” in terms of Covid deaths, said Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer in Moscow. “The government is doing everything in its power not to highlight these facts.”
The Russian government says it only counts deaths that have been confirmed to be caused directly by the coronavirus in its official toll. Additional cases confirmed by autopsy are part of a separate version published monthly by Rosstat – 162,429 at the end of last year, and more than 225,000 in February.
But major regional inequalities undermine the idea that the reason for the low official toll is merely methodological.
According to Mosstat figures, the city of Moscow had 28,233 excessive deaths in 2020 and reported 11,209 confirmed coronavirus deaths as part of the official toll. The Samara region – a relatively affluent area where the Volga River bends past oil fields and car factories as it is near Kazakhstan – had 10,596 excessive deaths, a jump of 25 percent from the 2019 death rate. Yet last year, the region reported only 606 official deaths due to coronavirus.
“The published figures are reliable,” said Armen Benyan, Samara’s health minister. “And that’s what they are.”
He acknowledged that most of the deaths in his region were indeed caused by the pandemic. A heart attack in a coronavirus-affected patient, for example, would not have turned up in the official toll.
The low official toll contributed to Russians’ awareness of the dangers of the virus in some cases – and to their deep distrust of the government’s message regarding the pandemic in others. Last October, a poll found that most Russians do not believe the government’s summary of cases of coronavirus: half of those who do not believe the count thought it was too high, while half believe that it is too low.
In February, another poll found that 60 percent of Russians say they do not intend to get the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, and that most believe the coronavirus is a biological weapon.
In the Samara region, Inna Pogozheva’s mother, an obstetrician-gynecologist, died in November after being admitted to hospital with a referral of Covid-19, based on a CT scan. The funeral directors, dressed in rubber boots and hazmat costumes, carried her mother from the morgue into their bodies in a sealed coffin and then disinfected each other.
But there was no word on Covid-19 on the death certificate.
Mrs. Pogozheva said she did not know what to believe about the pandemic – including whether the Gates Foundation might be behind it, as are the widespread and false conspiracy theories. But one thing was certain: she would not be vaccinated, even after seeing Covid’s devastation up close. If she could not trust her mother’s state issuance certificate, why would she trust the Russian government over the safety of the vaccine?
“Who knows what they mixed there?” Me. Pogozheva said. “You can not trust anyone, especially when it comes to this situation.”
Me. Pogozheva calls for her mother’s cause of death to be re-examined. The next of kin of a medical worker who apparently died of Covid-19 being caught on the track has a special payout from the state. Me. Kagarlitskaya, whose father was a paramedic, managed to change his cause of death to Covid-19 after her outrage on Instagram went viral and Samara’s governor personally intervened.
Despite all the deaths, there was minimal opposition in Russia – even among critics of Mr. Putin – against the government’s decision to keep businesses open last winter and autumn. Some compare it to a Russian stoicism, or fatalism, or the lack of an alternative to keep the economy going, given minimal help from the state.
Mr. Raksha, the demographer, noted that the increased death toll associated with the chaos and poverty in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was more deadly than the overall toll of the pandemic.
“This nation has seen so many traumas,” he said. Raksha said. ” People who have experienced so much develop a very different relationship to death. ‘
In the Samara region, according to the surplus statistics, the pandemic has killed as many as one in every 250 people. Viktor Dolonko, the editor of a cultural newspaper in the city of Samara, says that about 50 people he knew – many of whom are part of the region’s progressive art scene – lost their lives during the pandemic. But he does not believe that Samara should close its theaters – currently it may be filled to 50 percent of the capacity – to slow down the spread of the disease.
The death during the pandemic was tragic, he said, but he believes it was most common in people who were very old or had other health problems, and not all of whom were associated with the virus. Mr. Dolonko, 62, says he wears a mask in crowded places and regularly washes his hands – and regularly goes to gallery openings and performances.
“You can choose between continuing to lead your life, carefully or to decorate and stop living,” he said. Dolonko said. “Unlike You” – Westerners – “Russians know what it means to live in extreme conditions.”
At a church service in Samara on a recent Sunday, Rev. Sergiy Rybakov preached, “Let us love one another,” and embraced and kissed the congregation. One 59-year-old woman, who left the service, explained why she was not afraid to catch the virus there: “I trust God.”
On a website, the deaths of the coronavirus are detected in the Orthodox Church, which contains seven members of the clergy in the Samara region; Father Sergiy knew several of them well. He said he thought Russia had lifted its coronavirus restrictions because there was no end to the pandemic. He quoted Dostoevsky: “Man becomes accustomed to everything, the villain!”
“We’re getting used to living in a pandemic,” Father Sergiy said. “We’re getting used to the deaths.”
Allison McCann and Oleg Matsnev contributed research.