March 01, 2021

Sputnik V: First Place or Long Shot?

The Russia vaccine seems top-notch, but low public trust and a botched rollout remain formidable barriers to returning to normalcy.

As the historic Battle of Stalingrad raged in 1942, Zinaida Yermolyeva, a 43-year-old Soviet microbiologist, was assigned to help the city overcome a cholera outbreak that was proving nearly as fatal to Soviet troops as the German bombardments. After early experiments on herself, Yermolyeva would go on to develop an effective way of treating drinking water that the Red Army was sourcing from the Volga River, as well as an eventual antibiotic against cholera, diphtheria and typhoid. Her efforts proved critical in protecting Soviet soldiers from infectious diseases at that fateful battle and – eventually – defeating the Nazi military juggernaut. Howard Florey, the inventor of penicillin, praised her as the creator of an antibiotic equal to his own.

Today, Russians are more skeptical about healthcare solutions promoted by their government: in a survey conducted in December, only 38 percent said they were willing to take the country’s domestically-made coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V (named after the first man-made satellite sent into space), despite Russia having the world’s fourth-largest outbreak – over 3.7 million cases. After a much-publicized August rollout of “the world’s first registered COVID vaccine,” the bullhorns of Russian state media lapsed into an awkward silence. The vaccine was available, it was safe (apparently), cases had begun to tick upwards in a second autumn wave, the government was reluctant to shutter businesses in another lockdown, and… there was no news about how to get inoculated.

Robot — A “robot-consultant”
at the Moi
Dokumenty state
services center. It
can take down one’s
personal information
and issue a ticket for
which line you
should stand in.
Some models even
do basic diagnostics
and offer health
consultations.

President Vladimir Putin had announced on TV that mass inoculations would finally be widely available after having given priority to frontline workers. The results had been mixed: a few weeks ago, the developers of Sputnik V claimed that 1.5 million Russians had received a dose of the vaccine. These figures were subject to criticism, and rumors of healthcare workers being pressured into taking the vaccine didn’t help the cause. Since then, reliable data has been hard to find, with the best estimates suggesting that 0.69 doses of the vaccine have been administered per 100 people in Russia, considerably behind Israel (56.28), the United States (9.4) and France (2.25).

Leonid Nezlin, a 65-year-old neurobiologist in Moscow, is skeptical of Sputnik V’s declared effectiveness. “Vladimir Putin has advertised it, but hasn’t been vaccinated himself. Besides, we still haven’t seen the results of the Phase 3 trials. It appears suspicious,” he said. Nezlin added he would take Sputnik V if it is registered in the US and EU, so that he could travel there. The suspicion spreads across generational lines: Yekaterina Makhnovskaya, a 31-year-old university lecturer, put it succinctly: “The vaccine is not tested; there’s not enough data. Who knows what kind of reaction your body will have in a year’s time?” She is waiting until her doctor gets the jab before inoculating her family.

Public trust in the vaccine has not been the only barrier to achieving herd immunity. My girlfriend, who is Austrian, responded to a posting in a Facebook group for Moscow expats. A national TV channel was eager to show foreigners taking the Sputnik V vaccine. The following morning we showed up at a glitzy skyscraper in Moscow’s business district. The vaccine was being distributed via a remarkably efficient national network of online and municipal state service centers established years earlier, and we had been assigned to one of its flagship offices that offer free health screenings in addition to everything from registering property to signing up for health insurance. After filling out consent and health background forms, we waited in line for 10 minutes. The jab itself took less than two minutes; we were both completely asymptomatic and went to our respective offices after spending the mandatory half hour in the waiting room (a precautionary procedure in case of anaphylactic shock).

“You actually trust this Russian vaccine?” was the most common reaction I got after revealing I had gotten my first jab of Sputnik V in late January. “I trust the vaccine as much as I trust anything in our post-truth world,” I replied. I’ve seen no credible evidence debunking the claimed efficacy rate of 91% or of any major long-term side effects.

Yet experiences with getting the vaccine have not been uniform across the country: a colleague living just outside Moscow reported not being able to sign up online to get the shot at her local state services center due to high demand. In Volzhsky (pop. 320,000) – not far from where the Battle of Stalingrad took place – only one public clinic is currently offering Sputnik V, and people have reported being told to call back later when more doses become available.

Ironically, state TV has been brimming with coverage of how Russia’s Foreign Direct Investment Fund – tasked with promoting the vaccine internationally – has secured approval after approval in foreign lands from Hungary to Tunisia. And Argentina is in the midst of a full-scale national Sputnik V vaccination campaign, despite some logistical delays.

After years doing PR in Russia, I’ve come to a paradoxical conclusion: quite often the reality is much rosier than the rumors, but anything you say to convince a skeptical public otherwise only exacerbates the image problem. Grandstanding and cynicism aside, Russia did invent the periodic table of elements, do pioneering research into stem cells, and launched the first human into space. It has also done a cheaper and more efficient rollout of the vaccine than some advanced countries.

Standing on a street corner or taking the metro in Moscow, one wouldn’t necessarily grasp that Russia is in the midst of a pandemic (mask wearing aside): people go into stores, get married, take out mortgages, quit jobs, and embark on new careers. Domestic travel is booming, with many of Sochi’s ski resorts overfilled during the winter holidays. International borders are gradually being reopened: most recently, flights were re-launched to Finland, India, Qatar and Vietnam. Perhaps continued mass vaccination could see normalcy return to most sectors of the economy and public life by early May.

Author getting vaccinated — The author’s girlfriend shows off her certificate of vaccination.

Some large, state-owned companies, such as RusHydro (the world’s second-largest hydroelectric power producer, with nearly 70,000 employees), have already rolled out vaccination programs for their staff. My colleague outside Moscow finally received her jab in late January. A more recent survey revealed over half of Russians now support mass inoculations. Olga, a 40-something PR specialist in Volzhsky, explained her decision to get vaccinated as soon as possible: “Look at how many people around the world want to get the vaccine and aren’t able to. Our government is offering it for free! I’ve heard about Russians who live abroad flying back home to get the vaccine. It’s the most civilized way of defeating this disease.” She cited the heroic work of Zinaida Yermolyeva at Stalingrad as her inspiration.

March 01, 2021

Sputnik V: First Place or Long Shot?

The Russia vaccine seems top-notch, but low public trust and a botched rollout remain formidable barriers to returning to normalcy.

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