{"id":28581,"date":"2020-04-30T20:52:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=28581"},"modified":"2020-04-30T20:52:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:52:37","slug":"russia-vs-the-west-watch-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/04\/30\/russia-vs-the-west-watch-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Vs The West Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while back I expressed disbelief<\/a> at Russian statistics concerning the Covid-19<\/strong> outbreak. That was almost 4 weeks ago. Since then, their statistics have gotten worse:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From 43 to 1000+ fatalities in almost four weeks isn’t the worst possible showing, but it’s a little worrying, especially if the numbers aren’t necessarily trustworthy, as WaPo<\/strong><\/em> confirms<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Testing throughout February and most of March\u00a0was handled<\/a>\u00a0by a single lab in Siberia, meaning that most covid-19 cases across Russia\u2019s 11 time zones were being wrongly classified as pneumonia, bronchitis, flu, etc. It didn\u2019t help that authorities\u00a0criminalized<\/a>\u00a0the spread of \u201cfalse information\u201d or that they arrested a prominent doctor for challenging official statistics as she tried to deliver masks to an impoverished rural hospital.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Now, as social media users are sharing videos of ambulances lined up for miles waiting to deposit patients in overcrowded Moscow hospitals, it\u2019s no longer possible to claim that all is under control. The Russian health-care system was already struggling with a number of chronic health conditions (tuberculosis, heart disease, alcoholism, etc.) and many public health experts worry that the pandemic might bring matters to a breaking point. Russia is also one of the rare countries that\u2019s simultaneously coping with\u00a0low life expectancy<\/a> and a graying population, making it particularly vulnerable to covid-19. Putin\u2019s tendency to delegate decisions on pandemic policy to regional governors might help insulate him from political fallout in the near term, but it is unlikely to lead to a well-managed policy over the longer term.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And …<\/p>\n

\n
\n

On April 20, 500 people in Vladikavkaz violated a local lockdown order\u00a0to protest<\/a>\u00a0against the lack of reliable information on the spread of covid-19, and protests\u00a0have also taken place<\/a> in Rostov and smaller cities that do not typically register big opposition demonstrations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While no real threat to Putin, this may compound the problem. The deal to cut oil production may be a relief for Putin, even if it blunts his drive to control oil markets.<\/p>\n

On a related point, this is why amateurs like George Gilder<\/a> and Robert Epstein<\/a> are nothing more than troublemakers when it comes to data analysis. The data worlds they deal in may seem dirty, but the honest fact is that their worlds are spotless compared to the epidemiologist, whose data sources, at the best of times, are flawed due to lack of skills or warning, and when it’s not the best of times, flawed due to political expedience<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back I expressed disbelief at Russian statistics concerning the Covid-19 outbreak. That was almost 4 weeks ago. Since then, their statistics have gotten worse: From 43 to 1000+ fatalities in almost four weeks isn’t the worst possible showing, but it’s a little worrying, especially if the numbers aren’t \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28585,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28581\/revisions\/28585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}