The Very Low Number of Russia's Reported COVID-19 Cases Raises Questions of a Cover-Up

PJ Media ^ | 03/23/2020 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

Vladimir Putin is apparently doing a bang-up job in containing the coronavirus. In fact, he has performed spectacularly.

Despite a population of 144 million and having a long border with China, the Russian health ministry has reported only 306 cases of COVID-19. What's more, Putin has been right on top of the testing issue. Russia has tested more than 133,000 people. With only 306 positive tests, this makes Russia second in the world with the ratio of positive cases to the number of tests. Only tiny UAE has a better ratio.

But before we offer our sincere and heartfelt congratulations to President Putin, maybe we should start looking a little closer at those numbers.

ABCNews:

“If they have done that amount of testing, it is remarkably low,” Paul Hunter, a professor of health protection at Britain’s University of East Anglia, told ABC News. “But clearly there are both suspicious and non-suspicious explanations for that. I would be very pushed to say that data is false based just on the numbers.” But in a country where the state has a long history of hiding bad news from its citizens and the outside world, the anomalous figures have triggered suspicions of a cover-up. No solid evidence has so far emerged to support that theory, but even officials have begun to sound the alarm that the official numbers cannot be trusted.

“The number of all the infected is without question higher, but by how much?" Alexey Kurinny, a Communist party lawmaker who sits on the parliament’s health committee, wrote this week. "2 times (minimal) or 10 times?"

There's no such thing as a "whistleblower" in Putin's Russia. You blow the whistle, you disappear. But what if the numbers are right and the virus hasn't spread much to the general population?

[Nextrush]

Or the Neocon-Neolib Flu that makes you think Russia and China are the problems.

[VanDeKoik]

Oh please.

It’s Russia, not the USSR.

[CharlesWayneCT]

i normally would agree with this. However, there are 3 things arguing against this.

First, there is no particular value in lying. Unlike China, nobody is blaming Russia, and they would get nothing but sympathy if they had cases.

Second, they were not a place where a lot of chinese travel or work, nor do they have large numbers of people from spain or italy coming; their tourism is more summer, so they didn’t have an influx of international travelers.

Third, they are sending major help to Italy, when EU countries who are having CV cases did not. Including their military. i can’t imagine Russia risking their military in a foreign country if they were already experiencing a major outbreak in their own country.

Also, Russia would probably use military, and we track their military movements, and I would suspect we’d have public reports now of major movements to any area having a big breakout of CV cases.

[Court_Jester]

I don’t trust Russia either, but didn’t they close their border fairly soon after the outbreak was revealed? (the racists)

[the OlLine Rebel]

My mom thinks it’s a conspiracy because “no one in Russia or NK has it”.

Yes, could be cover-up, but could also be no one wants to go there and no one can leave.

[PGR88]

I know some Russians, and “social distancing” is something of a norm in their culture.

They are also not a globalist, open-borders, country. When they shut down travelers from someplace like China, they mean it.

[mac_truck]

One reason Russia’s numbers are lower is they don’t have to deal with left wing political correctness from the local government officials the way Milan, London and NYC does.

Another is that its pretty cold there in Jan/Feb and people tend to stay home. Lets see what happens when the weather gets warmer.

[null and void]

Comunist and former comunists are stellar examples...

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.

[cranked]

Captain Obvious ping please.

Oh wait.....my bad.

[null and void]

i can’t imagine Russia risking their military in a foreign country

They might, if they had a vaccine.

If they had a vaccine, and all that implies...

[Vaduz]

Questions of a Cover-Up

Maybe not In the U.S. so far only 400 have died any questions about a made up numbers danger is higher than a cover up.

[Carriage Hill]

She’s an EverClear gal. Too much of that would explain her looks and mental illness.

[TBall]

A good portion of West Virginia commutes to DC every day.

[HangnJudge]

...A good portion of West Virginia commutes to DC every day.

Especially Eastern Panhandle, which might as well be Maryland topographically speaking, which is where WVa’s first case was

[iontheball]

Just maybe they didn’t have bureaucrats obfuscating the use of Chloroquine.

[tbw2]

Limited travel, few international visitors, no problem with the government clamping down during a quarantine.

[rrrod]

Russians are fine decent people and they never lie...

LOL

[nevermorelenore]

I’m sure they lie on their very-limited news outlets, but ya can’t just “go to Russia” either. You have to file paperwork and get an invitation. The rest of the World just lets its borders bleed with anyone who wants to come in

Build The Wall Now

[CharlesWayneCT]

To be fair, we have no idea if 400 people have died, or 1000.

Pnemonia is Pnemonia. Before we knew about this, people thought they had the flu, and thousands of people died of the flu. I don’t remember if we were told it was a bad flu season or not; but we just don’t know if some of the deaths we attribute to flu were actually the CV.

ALso, we could have 10 times the population infected, and they all think they have a mild flu or a cold.

It’s find of funny, but in some ways, the “it’s the flu” people might be right — “the flu” might have been credited with a lot of the cases of CV, because we don’t test all the people who think they have the flu.

[billakay]

Do you really believe that no one can leave Russia? Every citizen has the constitutional right to come and go as they wish. The only way to be restricted from leaving is to take a certain category of “essential” government job, in which case you sign away the right to leave for the duration of your employment.