The number of offers should remain: Russian vaccine trials.
On Saturday, the Russian Ministry of Health announced the release of the first batch of coronavirus vaccine. It has been four days since its registration. Russia became the first country in the world to announce the success of its vaccine and register it after only two months of testing. The speed of its development and implementation raised questions and suspicions among Russian and foreign doctors, as well as the World Health Organization. But at least Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted the vaccine. One of his daughters was vaccinated against the coronavirus, the president said. This has led to a flurry of jokes and memes on social media, partly due to the fact that the new vaccine has been dubbed “Sputnik V”. Naked torso, bear and a large syringe.
“Putin superhero” is one of the most popular memes on social media. Soon after the announcement of the launch of “Sputnik V,” the Internet was flooded with memes in various languages depicting Putin as a superhero saving humanity from the evil “Corona.” One of the most common and predictable is to depict the new vaccine as a flying satellite with the Russian leader at the top. There are versions where the label of the drug also includes the world-famous Smirnoff vodka label. But one of the most popular became the one in which the Russian president, with his bare torso, takes the reins of a brown bear, riding with a syringe slung over his back, to fight the new virus. One version of this meme even claims that the president himself shared it. (This is not true).
Putin did not publish this article! Another popular post on Facebook – it was shared over 200 thousand times – was published in English from Vladimir Putin’s account. It compares the Earth’s first Soviet satellite, “which paved the way for mankind to go into space,” with the first Russian vaccine, “which will pave the way for a future without COVID, masks, and social isolation. The account is not an official page of the Russian president, but thousands of users obviously did not understand this.
This English Facebook post tells how Russia has saved the world several times with its vaccines. Another post on Facebook falsely credits Russia with saving humanity with its vaccines against several diseases: polio, cholera, diphtheria, whooping cough, and others. This is not true. The cholera vaccine was developed by the French scientist Louis Pasteur as an antivirus against the strain that affected chickens – chicken cholera. And in 1855, Spanish bacteriologist Jaime Ferran developed a vaccine that was the first to be administered to humans to protect against cholera. In 1955, American virologist Jonas Salk developed the first highly effective vaccine against polio. In 1958-59, the first oral polio vaccine was developed as a result of scientific collaboration between Soviet virologist Mikhail Chumakov and American scientist Albert Sabin. This vaccine is still used to immunize children around the world.
Fake quote supposedly from the President of Russia. On Facebook, an alleged “quote” from President Putin, whose authenticity the BBC could not confirm, was widely circulated: “Pharmaceutical companies asked us to postpone the release of our vaccine! It’s not about the economy. Russia doesn’t think about money when it comes to the lives of millions of people”. This post has over 35k likes and is actively being commented on. However, the phrase appears to be a mistranslation of a similar post on President Putin’s fan page that we mentioned earlier. None of these accounts are official pages of the Russian president, and these words do not appear in official sources.
Other posts on social networks draw attention to Putin’s statement that his daughter has already received the coronavirus vaccine. At the same time, the president, known for his secrecy, did not specify which of his daughters he was talking about, but mentioned that her temperature had risen afterward.
This is not Putin’s daughter, but a volunteer. In India, a video clip even went viral on social media showing a historic moment when supposedly “Putin’s daughter” received a COVID-19 vaccine. In fact, it is not Putin’s daughter who participated in the recent vaccine trials, but a student of the Military Medical Academy, as immediately pointed out by the Russian media.
The number of offers should remain the same.