How do dictators deal with numbers? Well, theories vary, but the bottom line is they produce their own numbers to fit their goals to manipulate the masses. In Russya today as the country tries to cope with the Coronavirus, the Kremlin produces numbers that tell many stories related to the deaths caused by the covid virus and its mutant offspring.
Deaths are recorded across the country and each is labelled by cause. Sounds simple enough. But when assigned a cause, that assignment can be made based on a number of factors, as we know. Without going into the all the possibilities, demographers have been looking at "excess" deaths during the pandemic period. That is, they've been looking at the number of deaths above average during a time period(weeks,months,years).
When the Kremlin released numbers of deaths for last year: 102,649, the World health Organization noted the number is far lower than those from the United States and most of Western Europe. Hmmm. How can this be? Mr. Putin, not well known for speaking the truth, noted that the country had a lockdown early on. However, the official Russyan state agency-Rosstat, said the country experienced excess deaths from all causes during the time period April 2020 through December to be 360,000. The latest figures from Rosstat show figures for January and February to bring totals well above 400,000. In the United States which has twice the population of Russya, deaths numbered 1 in every 600 people. In Russya, the virus killed 1 in every 400 people, or in a word the virus was much more lethal in Russya.
Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer, said "It's hard to find a worse developed country" in terms of covid mortality. "The government is doing all it can to avoid highlighting these facts."
For the Kremlin, it's business as usual.
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