COVID-19 pandemic in Russia

The infection spread from Italy on 2 March, leading to additional measures such as cancelling events, closing schools, theatres, and museums, as well as shutting the border and declaring a non-working period which, after two extensions, lasted until 11 May 2020.

According to detailed data published by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), 114,268 people with COVID-19 died between April and November 2020.

On 12 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, who had initially come to the attention of the WHO on 31 December 2019.

[18] On 23 February, eight Russians from the cruise ship Diamond Princess were evacuated to Kazan, Tatarstan where they were hospitalised, including three confirmed cases.

[19] These cases were listed as occurring on international conveyance and not included in official Russian statistics by Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing.

[20] Some of Russia's citizens abroad have been confirmed to be infected, on 28 February a Russian man tested positive in Azerbaijan after he had visited Iran.

[40] On 11 April, Moscow's mayor, Sobyanin, signed a decree introducing a digital pass system to enforce the coronavirus lockdown.

[44] On 9 May, with the 2020 Moscow Victory Day Parade postponed, celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany were reduced.

[47] On 27 May, Sobyanin announced that some restrictions in Moscow would be eased on 1 June, with all non-food stores and some service sector businesses re-opening and residents would be able to go outside for walks and sport according to a schedule.

[50] On 2 June, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that the government would launch a 5 trillion ruble ($73 billion) recovery plan in the next month to counteract the pandemic's economic impact.

[52][53] That day, Prime Minister Mishustin also announced the partial re-opening of the border for some travellers, saying that it would allow citizens to leave the country for work, studying, medical treatment or to take care of relatives.

Universities and schools would also be able to return to normal and the use of face masks and gloves outdoors would no longer be required except in public transport, shops and crowded areas.

[65] The previous day, the Association of Clinical Research Organisations, a union of pharmaceutical companies in Russia, urged the head of the Ministry of Health to delay the registration due to incomplete testing.

[72] On 8 September, the health ministry's press service said that the first batches of the vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Centre had entered civilian circulation.

[75] On 20 September, Prime Minister Mishustin signed a decree resuming flights with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and South Korea.

On 23 September, Rospotrebnadzor head, Anna Popova, signed a decree which requires Russian citizens who have returned from abroad by plane to stay home until they receive a negative test result.

[83] On 28 December, the Federal State Statistics Service said that the amount of recorded deaths from all causes between January and November had risen by 229,700 compared to 2019.

[86] Measures to prevent a crisis in Russia include banning the export of medical masks, random checks on the Moscow Metro, and cancellation of large-scale events by schools.

On 28 March, Chechen authorities urged the population of the republic to stay at their places of permanent residence, and banned entry to Grozny for anyone except emergency services, food supplies, government officials, police, and journalists.

Muscovites were not allowed to leave their homes except in cases of emergency medical care and other threats to life and health, to travel to work for those who are obliged to, to make purchases in the nearest shop or pharmacy, to walk pets at a distance not exceeding 100 metres from the place of residence, as well as to take out the garbage.

[91] On 30 March, similar orders were announced in Adygea, the Komi Republic, Mari El, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, some districts of Sakha Republic, Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan,[92] Belgorod, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Kursk, Lipetsk, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Ryazan, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Ulyanovsk and Vologda oblasts, the cities of Bryansk and Saint Petersburg.

[95] On 31 March, the "self-isolation regime" was announced in republics of Altai, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Dagestan,[96] Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Karelia,[97] Khakassia, Mordovia, Udmurtia and Tuva, Altai, Khabarovsk (for those over 65), Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Primorsky, Stavropol and Zabaykalsky krais, Bryansk, Chelyabinsk, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Kirov, Kostroma,[98] Kurgan, Magadan, Novosibirsk, Omsk,[99] Penza, Pskov (for those over 65), Rostov, Sakhalin, Samara, Smolensk,[100] Tambov, Tomsk, Vladimir, Volgograd, Voronezh and Yaroslavl[101] oblasts, Khanty-Mansi[102] and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrugs, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast,[103] the city of Sevastopol.

[107] On 1 April, the "self-isolation regime" was announced in the disputed territory of Crimea and Sevastopol,[108] the republic of North Ossetia–Alania,[109] Kamchatka[110] and Khabarovsk[111] krais, Ivanovo[112] and Orenburg[113] oblasts.

[122][123][124] For the clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church, only those serving in Russia are included On 25 April 2020, it was reported that doctors had published and were updating a public list of colleagues who had died during the pandemic which, as of 19 November, has 838 names.

On 13 June, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) published data on natural population changes in April.

[160] Pavel Malkov, the head of Rosstat, said in an interview with RBK published on 23 June that the statistics agency had published a higher death toll for April because it receives more complete data than the national coronavirus crisis centre and that it has a different calculation methodology, saying that the agency receives data from the Civil Registry Office and deals with death certificates that can take up to 45 days to complete following testing while the crisis centre publishes operational data manually entered into the system.

He also said that "one of the biggest secrets in statistics is that it's practically impossible to manipulate" and that "if we're talking about a qualitative indicator with a developed methodology, then any attempt to affect the final numbers by distorting the input data will become immediately evident".

Anastasia Vasilyeva, leader of the Doctors' Alliance organisation loosely aligned to the Russian opposition and doctor for opposition figure Alexei Navalny, made a series of videos accusing the authorities of concealing the true number of coronavirus cases by using pneumonia and acute respiratory infection as a diagnosis instead.

[173] Russian media have reported contradictory policy of Russia Today, whose Russian-language edition in 2021 started an intensive campaign in support for COVID-19 vaccination, while at the same time other language versions (German, Spanish, English etc.)

[190] In June 2021 Deputy Digital Development Minister Oleg Kachanov quoted data from official record of recoveries in the context of its integration with database used for issuance of "COVID passport" certificates, and the database had 9 million recoveries recorded, which was almost twice as the official case statistics (5 million) at that time.