It should go without saying that “Vladimir Putin is doing it” is not the kind of endorsement that should be sought for anything. As Russian hackers continue to interfere in American elections, Russian journalists continue to be found in the Moskva River, and Russian doctors who might have a handle on the true number of deaths in Russian hospitals continue to be defenestrated, it ought to be clear that Putin is not exactly concerned about human lives. Not even on the large scale.This is, after all, a man who not only gleefully initiated multiple wars, but hasn’t been above planting evidence to justify those wars.
The news on Tuesday that Russia has begun distribution of a “first in the world” vaccine against COVID-19 shouldn’t be taken as a sign that Putin has somehow outflanked the rest of the planet’s medical researchers. It definitely shouldn’t be something that Americans look on with jealousy. Instead it’s a signal of how desperately Putin needs to restore his own plunging popularity with a “win”—even if it means putting millions at serious risk.
It’s not unusual for popularity polls coming out of Russia to show Putin with support levels of 75% or more, especially following the annexation of Crimea, announcements intended to spur dreams of a Soviet re-Union, and Putin’s evident success in crippling the NATO alliance via Donald Trump. But declining world oil prices over the last several years have made it difficult for Putin to keep up the funding for his imperial dreams, and even more difficult to keep ordinary Russians that everything is all vodka and roses on the homefront. As the BBC reported last year, rising poverty, soaring inflation, and a collapsing pension system drove Putin’s popularly into the basement. His response in that case was simple: He ordered a change in the polling questions, “restoring his popularity” overnight and causing officials to scramble to explain the low numbers as “a miscount.”
But even with the questions and results freshly re-jiggered, COVID-19 compounded Putin’s problems. By May of 2020, he was at historic lows in the polls, and over the summer regional governors passed Putin in terms of popularity. Despite a slight uptick at the end of July, two polls show trust in Putin hovering at 28% while his personal popularity remains higher. Russians like what Putin says, they just don’t trust him to deliver.
From outside looking in, and especially looking through the fog of incompetence surrounding Donald Trump, Putin may appear inevitable and invulnerable. He’s not. Which is why millions of Russians are now getting a vaccine that hasn’t completed trials.
The idea of “compassionate use” is familiar from instances in which people are afflicted with agonizing or deadly illness for which conventional medications and therapies have failed. Terminal cancer patients, in particular, have sometimes been given access to drugs that were still years away from reaching the market, in a genuine case of “what do you have to lose?” Some people have been making the same case about vaccines for COVID-19.
But vaccines are different. Vaccines are given to people who are not sick. If a drug to treat a terminal illness fails to help, or even causes harm, the cost is limited. If a vaccine turns out to be either ineffective, or carries some side effect undetected in too-limited trials, the cost can be devastatingly high.
Right now, Russia is reporting a death rate from COVID-19 of 1.6%, though both the 900,000 reported cases and the 15,000 deaths are undoubtedly understating the truth. But here’s a number that’s not undercounting: 76. That’s how many people who received the Russian vaccine in tests so far. Just 76.
If Putin were to effectively vaccinate Russia’s 145 million citizens, that would require at least 100 million doses of the vaccine. The number of ways this could go wrong are myriad. If the vaccine proves ineffective, COVID-19 cases in Russia could explode if people drop all social distancing efforts, convinced they are immune to the disease. If there is a fatal side effect that appears just one time in 10,000 doses of the vaccine, that alone could account for almost as many deaths as are now attributed to COVID-19. If that number is 1 in 1000, it could mean 100,000 deaths. It’s not likely there is such a devastating side effect, but no one knows because, again, the vaccine was only tested on 76 people.
There are other reasons to be concerned about Russia’s roll-out of a vaccine. As Science reports, the company currently manufacturing the vaccine says they can produce “1.5 million doses per year”—enough to vaccinate Russia by 2080. Even more concerningly, the technique behind this vaccine involves using adenovirus 5 carrying a COVID-19 gene. In 2007, trials of an HIV vaccine using this technique were stopped “after they found that it increased the likelihood of its transmission.” (Emphasis emphatically added.)
The Russian vaccine is more about hurrying to deliver something that punches up Putin’s popularity compared to regional politicians. At best, a low production rate may relegate it to a paper victory that barely makes an appearance in the real world. At worst, millions of Russians could receive a vaccine that makes them more likely to transmit COVID-19.