Russia’s COVID-19 Cases Soars And Officially Surpassed China’s Record

The number of COVID-19 positive in Russia has grown and it recorded 87,147 cases as of April 27. With the new confirmed cases of 6,198, the country headed by Vladimir Putin has officially overtaken China that currently has 82,830 cases.

According to the Russian News Agency, the total number of coronavirus infection cases in Russia covers the nation’s 85 regions. 579 patients have been discharged this week bringing the number of those who recovered since the start of the outbreak to 7,346. On the other hand, 50 patients have recently died, increasing the death toll to 794.

Despite the increase of cases, the agency stated that the daily growth of COVID-19 cases in the country has slowed down by seven percent. Now, since Russia has overtaken China, it is now the ninth country with the most number of coronavirus patients.

In any case, The Daily Mail reported that people are suspecting Russia and China are actually concealing the real number of the infected in their territory. There is a belief that both nations have far more than cases than what they have publicly declared.

This is because many people have not been tested plus some infected do not feel sick at all. It was noted that 43.4% of the patients did not exhibit symptoms. Additionally, it is also possible that the said countries are deliberately manipulating the statistics for their own political schemes.

Meanwhile, as Russia struggles to deal with the pandemic and its economy is taking a hit already, it was observed that its president, Vladimir Putin, has been missing in action. It seems that the leader chose to lay low while the outbreak is getting worse.

He was seen only on four public occasions since the crisis started. Since January, Putin is left his job to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and Prime Minister Mishustin as he retreated to his remote country residence.

Nikolai Petrov, a Senior Research Fellow at London’s Chatham House, said that the reason why the president is hardly visible when the contagion hit is because he is not prepared for it.

“Putin has left Sobyanin and Mishustin to call the difficult shots so that if and when the epidemic gets worse, they can take the flack,” Time quoted Ben Noble, a University College London politics lecturer, as saying. “It’s a familiar Putin playbook move that we’ve seen before. He doesn’t want to be in leadership when he thinks it can backfire on him.”