Today La Repubblica had an article on Russia numbers (it's in Italian and under paywall). Translated in English with google translate:
"With 306 confirmed cases and no deaths in a country of approximately 145 million inhabitants, Russia boasts one of the lowest coronavirus infection rates in the world. The merit of the measures taken in a timely manner, say the authorities: the border with China closed already on 20 February and the obligation to quarantine for anyone arriving from the countries affected by the pandemic. Yet the Federation doctors tell of another reality. "Not only are the numbers down, but they are shameless lies," she says on the phone with Repubblica Anastasija Vasilieva, head of the Alliance of Doctors union and author of a video report on YouTube displayed by over 250 thousand people. "It's all propaganda because the Kremlin doesn't want to cancel the constitutional referendum of April 22".
The truth, says Vasilieva, would be in the folds of the percentages disseminated by Rosstat and re-launched by the business newspaper Rbk. From January 2019 to January 2020, the Russian Statistical Institute recorded a 37 percent increase in cases of "community-acquired pneumonia", or CAP, which is almost 2,000 more cases. "The authorities superimpose Pac on coronaviruses to avoid panic," continues Vasilieva. "No one will ever tell us the truth about how many people died and what they died of. Doctors told us that they were forbidden to diagnose post mortem coronavirus on pain of dismissal."
Even in life the diagnoses are not immediate. "The swabs are made only in the case of contact with positive patients or those returning from the countries where the epidemic is underway," the communist deputy Aleksej Kurinnyj, member of the Duma Health Commission, told the Republic. Not only that, until a few days ago only a laboratory in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, 3,300 km east of Moscow, was authorized to confirm the results of the swabs made. Now there are about fifteen, however few for over 17 million square km of territory. In addition, the Pcr medicine website revealed, the Russian version of the swab would not be accurate enough.
"The situation is under control," said Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin instead. However, in recent days, the measures have been tightened: entry ban for foreigners until May 1, schools and monuments closed, outdoor events and indoor gatherings of over 50 people closed in Moscow. And there is a hurry to build a hospital within a month on the outskirts of the capital. A sign for many Russians that even the authorities are preparing for the worst. So much so that, mindful of Chernobyl, they make supplies of food. "The only consolation - Vasilieva concludes - is that in Russia there is no high population density, there is not much travel and the babushkas, the elderly, are locked in the house. Factors that will help us avoid high mortality rates ". Then there is the Russian humor: "Once the Russian border is crossed - people joke about it - the coronavirus becomes a seasonal flu"."
