On January 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin met by videoconference with members of the government, who reported to him the situation on the battlefield of the state with the “omicron”. Special QR “b” Andrey Kolesnikov at the same time, he draws attention to the fact that only the chairman of the executive committee of the All-Russian People’s Front (ONF) Mikhail Kuznetsov managed to really shake up the officials who had deepened in positional battles.
Vladimir Putin started the meeting “on the wrong topic” (getting up, perhaps “on the wrong foot”). But, apparently, not that one seemed more important than all the others. The Russian president tried to correct the position of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which recently in a sharp form not only proposed, but demanded to ban the production and circulation of cryptocurrency in the country.
Obviously, Vladimir Putin did not want this to look like a discovery of misunderstandings between the government, the Central Bank, and even himself. But that’s what it looked like. And the fact that a week ago, when the Central Bank made public its position, seemed in every sense a coordinated decision (how could it be otherwise: on such an occasion and so loudly?), Now it immediately became an impromptu personally of the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina.
— The Central Bank of the Russian Federation deals with these issues and regulates these issues. The Central Bank does not stand in our way of technical progress and is making the necessary efforts to introduce the latest technologies in this area of activity,” Mr. Putin made a reservation. experts of the Central Bank, the expansion of this type of activity carries certain risks, and above all for the citizens of the country, given the high volatility and some other components of this topic. Although, of course, we also have certain competitive advantages here, especially in the so-called mining. I mean the surplus of electricity and the well-trained personnel available in the country.
It was already clear that Vladimir Putin did not treat cryptocurrencies as witheringly menacingly as Elvira Nabiullina.
Obviously, after the announcement of the Central Bank, someone managed to tell Vladimir Putin that it (cryptocurrency, not Elvira Nabiullina) is not hopeless. And, apparently, he even prompted me to say words about this at the very beginning of the meeting with the government (when everyone was waiting for a discussion of the topic of the penetration of “omicron” into the Russian outback): so that no one, God forbid, would miss them.
“I would ask both the Russian government and the Central Bank to come to some kind of unanimous opinion during the discussion and I would ask you to hold this discussion in the near future, and then report on the results that will be achieved during this discussion,” Mr. Putin.
He made it clear that the way the Central Bank proposed would not happen. As for the cryptocurrency, you will have to negotiate. Cryptocurrency – to be.
“As of today, cases of the Omicron strain have been registered in 72 regions of the country,” Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova said. “In the structure of detected cases, the outgoing Delta variant accounts for 47.9%, Omicron and other strains – 52.1%.
Tatyana Golikova called the “delta” the outgoing strain and thereby flattered, of course, the “omicron”. But in general, there is no point in arguing with this.
“The hospitalization rate,” she continued, “last week per 100,000 people was 39 and increased by 9.3% compared to the second week of the year. During the same period, the rate of new detected cases – also per 100 thousand of the population – amounted to 231 and increased by 102.4%. Thus, of the total number of new cases detected, an average of 17% were hospitalized.
She meant that hospitalizations with omicron were rarer than with delta.
The main feature of the “omicron”, apparently, is this:
– Over the past two days, hospitalization of children has increased by 36.5%. Now this is the subject of our special attention, and of course, we treat this with great concern.
There was something, in her opinion, to calm:
– Operational mortality rates for the 25 days of January are 22% less than the same period last year and also 22% less than 25 days of December 2021.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that herd immunity in some regions is not growing, but falling, because people are not revaccinated even under the threat of a “volatile” infection (maybe they still haven’t realized it the way it deserves).
Another measure of the state to combat the “omicron”: it is supposed to spend much more money on the war with it. (But he has no money for a war with the state.)
– Decisions have already been made to allocate 5 billion rubles. for the purpose of providing patients with free medicines at the outpatient stage,” the vice-premier said, “as well as 15 billion rubles. for centralized procurement by the Ministry of Health of medicines to provide a stationary link. In order to reduce the burden on primary care medical staff, the Ministry of Health issued a leaflet for citizens who are being treated at home, including those who are asymptomatic.
I have read the brochure. Without a doubt, citizens who have studied it will increase, and not reduce, the burden on the primary health care staff, because if before reading the brochure they lived in a lulling state of ignorance, then after studying they will fall into despair, since at first they will not even be able to classify, to to which group of the curable population they should or even should be assigned, and they will surely come to the conclusion with relief that they are in the group of the incurable.
And in a sense they will be right (although COVID has nothing to do with it).
Following Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, who reported on the functioning of the 122 information service, which receives calls from citizens who still have the strength and desire after reading the brochure, Mikhail Kuznetsov, the head of the executive committee of the ONF, spoke with monitoring the system of relations between the state and the individual in the fight against COVID .
Vladimir Putin said that it was he who asked the ONF to take up such work, which, apparently, made its meaning more difficult.
“The average time to call an ambulance is now three minutes,” said Mr. Kuznetsov.
So this is a good result. “In last place of all regions is the Leningrad Region, where so far there is only six minutes of waiting, which is within the norm,” he added, and residents of the Leningrad Region would probably disagree with him about the norm.
“The average dial-up time on 122 (which Dmitry Chernyshenko reported on — A.K.) is two minutes,” Mr. Kuznetsov said, “but at the same time we are fixing a failure now in Ingushetia … we could not get through there … and in the Samara region, where the waiting time on the line was 23 minutes when we checked it.
The number 23 sounds, of course, defiant, but pales before the phrase “we could not get through there.” That is, not in 23 minutes, but in general. And we must understand that the attempt was not one or two. And you can try to imagine yourself in the place of people who also could not get through, but were also sick at the same time.
In clinics, however, things are worse:
“The average call time here is three minutes. However, unfortunately, we have 12 regions where, apparently, there was an overload, and we simply could not get through… We check five polyclinics per region – selectively… These are 12 regions: Amur Region, Jewish Region, Kamchatka, Kursk, Leningrad regions, Buryatia, Khakassia, Saratov, Sakhalin, Stavropol, Tomsk and Yaroslavl.
Of course, you should not flatter yourself that those who got through the phone immediately felt in perfect order:
– People call, but 25% of respondents tell us that, having called, they could not invite a doctor, or an ambulance did not arrive, or they did not bring free medicine to their homes.
That is, the main assistant to them is the same brochure. After all, she is their best and only friend.
True, Mikhail Kuznetsov has ideas:
What are we trying to do here? We agreed with the government, and everyone who called 122 will receive an SMS message where they will answer the question: “Is your problem solved or not?” We will analyze it and, together with the Ministry of Health, try to help further.
Thus, everyone who has experienced a lot of feelings in an attempt to first get through and then get real help will receive a new wave of them from the text message. But at least they will speak up. The “All-Russian People’s Front” should be given its due: it is ready to take on its shoulders serious sins, and obviously not its own.
Another topic dealt with by the ONF is also resonant:
— We checked the cost of PCR tests in 200 settlements in all regions. The price reaches 2.5 thousand rubles, despite the fact that according to compulsory medical insurance it costs no more than 800, that is, a difference of three times! Free in public clinics now you can pass only if you have symptoms. In such poor regions as Ingushetia, Khakassia, the Pskov region and in many others, the cost of tests was even more than 2.5 thousand rubles. We interviewed 22,000 people who took tests in January, and 37% of them said they took them for a fee, including at the request of employers, or because they were in contact with a sick person. Responsible people go and take tests.
Mr. Kuznetsov suggested a solution:
– We proceed from the fact that Tatyana Alekseevna (Deputy Prime Minister Ms. Golikova. – A.K.) spoke about the FAS (Federal Antimonopoly Service.— “b”). Commercial laboratories do not need to advertise PCR testing, their demand is stable. The Federal Antimonopoly Service has such a wonderful tool, they call it “collective dominance.” It is very likely that at the peak of the wave, these prices could be tried for people to lower.
Considering that everywhere you go, prices are about the same, you can’t even believe that it could be otherwise. So it will be interesting to see. Or rather, pay.
Finally, we are talking about covid payments to doctors:
— Vladimir Vladimirovich, we receive separate requests from employees of CT rooms (computed tomography.— “b”) and laboratories that work with PCR tests, where people have a chance to get infected, but do not receive covid payments,” said Mikhail Kuznetsov. are included by the regions in the so-called temporary staff list, and, accordingly, these people receive covid payments. We are in a tense dialogue with the Ministry of Health on this issue. We would think that in fact it would be possible to extend the practice to all regions, so that it does not turn out that in some regions these categories of doctors receive covid payments, and in others, due to the fact that they were not included in the staff list, they didn’t receive them.
And about free medicines, for which, as Tatyana Golikova just reported, billions of rubles are regularly allocated:
– “People’s Front” interviewed 29 thousand people who fell ill in January on an outpatient basis. 30% of them have not received free medicines to date. At the same time, the biggest problem is that 40% of them violated the self-isolation regime and came to pharmacies and bought medicines on their own.
Mikhail Kuznetsov, however, did not want to quarrel with members of the government:
– Compared to the peak of the previous wave, it should be noted that in fact there is a positive trend, because in November last year there were 50% of them, now it is only 30%.
Vladimir Putin asked Tatyana Golikova “to directly receive this information and respond accordingly.”
So everything will be fine from now on.