A shipyard in the Far North, seven hospitals, an evangelical church, a nursing home and a military academy have become the largest hotspots of coronavirus spread in Russia, and all are located outside Moscow. In the conditions of the epidemic, isolated institutions have found themselves in a zone of special risk, where dozens of people risk being infected due to late detection of an employee’s illness. The Russian service of the BBC reports on the largest outbreaks in the country and the authorities’ response to them.
The largest recorded outbreak in Russia is in the village of Belokamenka in the Kolsky district of the Murmansk region. Almost all of those infected are employed by subcontractors of NOVATEK, mostly at the “Velesstroy” company. Those infected with the coronavirus were working on the construction of the large-tonnage Novatek-Murmansk shipyard on the shore of Kola Bay. The shipyard plans to build floating gas liquefaction plants. The first case of the disease was detected at the construction site on April 6, Novaya Gazeta reported. The governor of the region, Andrei Chibis, said on April 13 that the outbreak was localized in Belokamenka, but the next day the number of infected people doubled. As of April 23, the Murmansk Operational Center reported 451 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Currently, there are only 603 infected people in the region. Workers complained to “Novaya Gazeta” about the lack of masks and gloves, as well as the lack of social distance at the construction site.
Construction in Belokamenka refused to stop, despite the fact that it is currently the largest coronavirus hotspot not only in the Murmansk region, but in the entire country. According to “Kommersant”, a total of 11 thousand people are working at the Kola shipyard. According to Novaya Gazeta, in addition to Russians, there are shift workers from Turkey and Belarus. The “patient zero” came from Kyrgyzstan, Chibis said. The main outbreak of the disease occurred at a site where 4.6 thousand people were working – the site is isolated and the workers have been sent into quarantine. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations has set up a mobile hospital near the construction site with artificial lung ventilation equipment. According to local authorities and NOVATEK, there is no reason to stop the construction project. Murmansk officials claim that over 90% of those infected are asymptomatic. “Velestroy has only temporarily suspended work for disinfection in the shift camp. Governor Chibis expects a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases. Even before the shipyard outbreak, the Murmansk government had decided to purchase electronic tracking bracelets for patients in isolation at home. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. The number of episodes should remain the same. End of story Podcast advertising
The second largest outbreak of coronavirus is in the Kuvatov Republican Clinical Hospital in Ufa. On April 6, Bashkortostan authorities announced the death of an 80-year-old patient with posthumously diagnosed coronavirus in RKB. The head of the republic, Radiy Khabirov, stated that the cause of death was a stroke and diabetes, not the virus itself, but the hospital was closed for a two-week quarantine. According to the coronavirus, more than a thousand employees and patients of RKH (Regional Clinical Hospital) were tested. Covid-19 was initially detected in 170 people (they were called “suspected” by the Ministry of Health of the Republic). Khabirov said that the consequence of the outbreak at RKH could be the infection of several thousand people. The New York Times newspaper drew attention to the large-scale outbreak. After the quarantine was introduced, employees of RKB [name of organization] said that they had already warned management in March about a large number of sick people. Rimma Kamalova, the head of the rheumatology department, told the TV program “60 Minutes” on the “Russia” channel that doctors “mentioned at every briefing that we have a lot of patients with fever. Kamalova explained that despite doctors’ concerns, coronavirus tests were conducted only on those who had traveled abroad or had contact with the sick, in accordance with management’s instructions. On the program “Echo of Moscow,” a doctor who had been diagnosed with pneumonia referred to what was happening in Ufa as “our Russian Wuhan.
Doctors quarantined in Ufa say they have been warning management since March about the growing number of infected patients and complaining about the lack of protective equipment. Pictured: production of reusable masks in Bashkortostan. Doctors complained to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, Ufa1.ru reported. They pointed to the republican authorities’ disregard for warnings and the lack of protective equipment (medical caps, respirators and gowns). Relatives of the imprisoned doctors told the media that they had no place to sleep and nothing to eat. Patients also expressed their dissatisfaction. Bashkortostan’s health minister, Maxim Zabelin, called the complaints “crying” and compared the doctors themselves to “military personnel. The Investigative Committee of Bashkortostan has opened an investigation into the actions of the management of the Republican Clinical Hospital for possible negligence (Part 1, Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The president of the National Medical Chamber of Russia (NMCR), Leonid Roshal, personally defended the chief physician Elza Sirtlanova. According to him, the actions of the Investigative Committee of Russia “do not stand up to criticism”, because the hospital faced a “force majeure circumstance for which the whole world was not ready”. Syrtlanova complained on Facebook that they were trying to “scapegoat” the hospital. The scandal of the outbreak has flared up again after the publication of a video showing people escaping through the windows of a closed hospital. The Kirov district court of Ufa decided to send six employees of the RKB to compulsory quarantine in the hospital, which “left its territory without waiting for the test results during the isolation period”. On April 20, the hospital’s quarantine was lifted, and in the coming weeks it will only serve patients with coronavirus. Chief physician Syrtlanova is in self-isolation, as she told the BBC. According to her, in most cases the preliminary diagnosis of coronavirus turns out to be a common viral infection. The hospital is gradually releasing patients to continue their treatment at home, leaving only 150 people with pneumonia and a positive test. Bashkortostan is one of the regions with the highest number of coronavirus deaths. In the republic, 14 people have died. The coronavirus has been confirmed in 422 residents.
On April 20, the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Yevgeny Kuivashev, announced that the coronavirus had been diagnosed in 78 patients at the Ekaterinburg City Hospital No. 1. In less than a day, the number of infected people rose to 91, including 16 hospital staff. The total number of patients in the region as of April 23 was 271. The inpatient facility was reprofiled as a contagious hospital and closed for quarantine. The source of the coronavirus spread in the hospital was identified as a doctor who had been infected by a neighbor. Pavel Krekov, the deputy governor of the Sverdlovsk region, promised “severe punishment” for those responsible for the outbreak.
The Ekaterinburg hospital outbreak is one of the few hotspots of coronavirus spread that was first reported by officials, rather than the media and social networks. Andrey Tsvetkov, the region’s health minister, said that the doctor from whom the medical staff and then the patients presumably contracted the infection had stopped going to work until the diagnosis was confirmed. Escapes from a closed hospital began – employees of the regional Rospotrebnadzor reported the unauthorized departure of an 80-year-old man from GKB. He was admitted to another hospital, while his wife was placed under observation.
On April 22, Krasnoyarsk Rospotrebnadzor reported 89 cases of coronavirus infection at the Makarov Ophthalmologic Hospital (13 of the infected persons were employees of the eye clinic). The hospital was closed for quarantine the day before the official announcement. Relatives of the elderly man with coronavirus – the first victim of Covid-19 in the region – claimed he contracted the virus at an eye center. An 82-year-old man did not complain about his health, his granddaughter told the NGS24 portal, but due to a retinal detachment he needed urgent surgery. He spent two days in hospital. After being discharged, the man’s temperature rose. The patient had contact with a doctor who was also found to have the virus. The elderly man was placed on mechanical ventilation, but he died.
On April 22, the death of an 87-year-old woman from pneumonia caused by the virus became known in Kansk. According to “Prospect Mira”, she was a patient of an eye center. Among the patients of the hospital there are 37 residents of Krasnoyarsk, and another 39 came for treatment from different cities of the region. According to Rospotrebnadzor, one person is in critical condition, while the majority of those infected have a mild form of the disease or are asymptomatic. As of April 23, a total of 427 people have been infected with the coronavirus in the Krasnoyarsk region.
In the Bryansk region, the epicenter of the infection became the church of Evangelical Christians of the “Awakening” faith. The outbreak among parishioners and those in contact with them began in mid-March, but the media learned about it in April. The parishioner of the church, 51-year-old Evgeny Kozlov, in an interview with the blog “Bryanskiy vorchun” said that on March 13 at Sheremetyevo airport he met his brother and mother, who had returned from Spain. Upon arrival, the temperature of the relatives was taken, but no instructions were given. A representative of Rospotrebnadzor warned that a family returning from Europe should be quarantined at home for two days. During this time, an 80-year-old woman had contact with other relatives, including grandchildren. Andrey Kozlov managed to attend the Sunday service at “Probuzhdenie” (“Awakening”), where about 100 people gathered. After the service, the parishioners “relaxed and drank tea,” Pastor Mikhail Biryukov told RBK. He told Novosti Bryanska that Kozlov’s relatives had no connection to the church, and that his mother had even asked him not to attend the service so as not to get sick.
The parishioners of the “Prabuzhdeniye” church in the Bryansk region are receiving threats after the largest outbreak in the region started due to the relatives of one of the churchgoers. Another version is voiced by the Bryansk operational headquarters – allegedly, the family was immediately warned of the need to isolate themselves. Their relatives were charged under Article 236 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which deals with violations of sanitary and epidemiological norms (Part 1). On March 18, Kozlova’s mother was hospitalized, and two days later her son developed a fever that lasted several days. During this time, he stayed at home, had no contact with anyone and, according to his own statement, “recovered on his own”. At the request of Rospotrebnadzor, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with coronavirus on the third test. Pastor Biryukov and other Protestants have been infected with the coronavirus. In the Bryansk region, the number of infected cases has reached 102, 89 of whom are parishioners of the Protestant church “Prabuzhdenie” (“Awakening”). The region’s governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said as much on the “Russia 24” television channel on April 7. According to him, a total of 300 people managed to contact the sick parishioners. As of April 23, 459 people in the Bryansk region were infected with the coronavirus. On April 3, the Bryansk court suspended the work of the church and sealed off the building. Biryukov reported that parishioners began receiving threats from other residents, and some of them were even fired. “Someone is taping sheets of paper with the inscription ‘Die, scum’ to the doors of their apartments. Comments on social networks call for our church to be burned down,” he complained to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.
Recently, authorities reported a new outbreak of illness at a nursing home in Seltse. A total of 79 people in the town are sick, but it is not known how many of them are residents of the nursing home. A quarantine is currently in effect at all social institutions in the region. On April 11, the outbreak of the infection in the Vzyamsky nursing home for the elderly and disabled in the Smolensk region was announced after several employees were tested. As a result, the entry of cars into the city was restricted. The first person to be infected is considered to be the head of the boarding school, who was already on sick leave at the time of testing. It was emphasized that he had not recently traveled from Vyazma and had not received any self-isolation orders. Tests were conducted, and among the residents of the boarding house, those infected with Covid-19 were isolated in a separate wing. On April 15, the chief sanitary doctor for the Vyazemsky, Ugransky, and Tyomkinsky districts, Alexander Zykov, reported 83 infected persons (including 28 employees). Patients with mild symptoms were admitted to the hospital in Vyazma, while seriously ill patients were admitted to the clinical hospital in Smolensk. This is a significant portion of the total number of infected people in the Smolensk region – as of April 23, there were 251 of them.
A week later, the authorities reported that out of 361 patients in the regional hospital, 44 were employees and residents of the Vyzemsky boarding house. Nannies accompanying the elderly patients were not allowed to stay with them in the hospital. Officially, only one death was reported at the boarding school – 74-year-old Nikolai Kima. The authorities stressed that the cause of death was considered to be cardiovascular failure, and that the coronavirus aggravated his pre-existing serious and chronic illnesses. The authorities did not report any specific violations in the boarding school’s operation during the pandemic, but the institution’s former director, Sergei Sobolev, was fired. The boarding school is now run by Mikhail Shipilov, the chief external infectious diseases specialist at the regional health department.
One of the first to be taken to Smolensk hospital was head nurse Nina Petrova, who said that the staff at the boarding house had followed all sanitary regulations. “We disinfected, wiped and cleaned, wore masks and gloves, wiped everything after two hours, washed and soaked several times a day. We did everything honestly, thinking the infection would not come to us,” she told the BBC.
A few days after the infection was detected, employees of the charitable foundation “Old Age is Joy”, who were working at the Viazemsky orphanage under an agreement with the administration, fell ill. The director of the foundation, Lisa Oleskina, told the BBC that from the very beginning it was necessary to establish a clean and dirty zone in the orphanage and create a sanitary checkpoint to prevent the infection of staff.
In the Republic of Komi, one of the first foci of coronavirus infection in the country was discovered in the hospital of the Ezhva district of Syktyvkar. On March 25, Health Minister Dmitry Berezin reported Covid-19 in six people associated with the Ezhevskaya hospital, including a doctor. As of April 1, 54 people in the Republic of Komi have been infected with the coronavirus, all but one of whom have been hospitalized in the Ezhvinsk district hospital. Novaya Gazeta sources named the doctor who returned from abroad and was not quarantined as “Patient Zero”. Presumably it was Andrei Kern, the head of the first surgical department of the hospital. The doctor’s family members denied his connection to the infection hotspot. Kern himself suffered from the disease and ended up in the hospital, his daughter told Meduza.
Komi remains prevalent in dozens of regions with the highest number of infected people. Officials have officially confirmed the deaths of four residents due to the virus. The photo shows the funeral of one of them. On April 1, the local leadership of the Investigative Committee of Russia began investigating the possible involvement of an unnamed doctor in the infection at Ezhevskaya Hospital. After the number of infected people in Komi set an anti-record after Moscow and the region on April 2, Governor Gaplikov resigned. He was replaced by the deputy head of the Ministry of Health and former head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency, Vladimir Uyba. A week later, the republic’s health minister, Dmitry Berezin, resigned.
Patients the BBC spoke to said conditions at the hospital left much to be desired. “Once they brought a man to our ward and said there was not enough space. In the evening they came back for him: young man, get ready, you have a positive result. And he spent the whole day with us,” said former patient Konstantin. Some of those who were in the hospital learned about the outbreak from social networks, not from doctors. Patients of the gynecological department had to record a video message to be evacuated from the epicenter of the virus. As of April 10, the number of coronavirus patients at Ezvinsky Hospital had risen to 76 people, according to Uiba. Another 139 patients had not yet been diagnosed. By that time, the infection had spread to other hospitals and districts of Syktyvkar. Komi is among the top ten regions with the highest number of infected people – 542 as of April 23.
On April 20, hospital officials reported that they could resume normal emergency patient care within two weeks. All questions about the final number of infected people in the hospital were referred by the BBC to the press service of the regional Ministry of Health. They told the BBC that as of April 23, all patients with coronavirus had been discharged from the hospital and that the medical facility was being disinfected.
On April 18, the operational center of the Arkhangelsk region reported the quarantine in the regional clinical psychiatric hospital due to the corona virus infection of one of the employees. 32 doctors were sent into self-isolation, while 52 patients were left under the care of 14 doctors. On April 19, the infection of 71 employees and patients was announced.
About 700 people have been quarantined at the research institute in Vreden, and doctors believe that up to 80 percent of them may be infected with the coronavirus. Authorities are not releasing the exact number of cases. The staff of the hospital itself spoke about the infected doctors. The head of the department of neuro-orthopedics with bone oncology, Dmitry Ptashnikov, announced on Instagram that he was infected with the coronavirus. All 10 of his subordinates are also sick, with nine of them diagnosed with pneumonia. Pneumonia has also been confirmed in 12 patients. The center’s director, Rashid Tikhilov, was one of the first to be infected and was hospitalized on the 11th. The relative of one of the nurses told “Fontanka” that employees with coronavirus are forced to continue working at the center. According to Ptashnikov, some seriously ill patients will be transferred to other hospitals. Starting this week, patients and doctors who are not infected will be sent home for self-isolation.
On April 20, the Ministry of Defense acknowledged an outbreak of infection at the foreign faculty and positive tests for coronavirus among 55 cadets from other faculties. The ministry emphasized that the infected persons did not participate in the preparation of ceremonial calculations in St. Petersburg and at the Alabino shooting range near Moscow. According to the Military Ministry, the cadets from the Nakhimov Naval Academy in St. Petersburg who were found to be infected in Moscow did not take part in the parade rehearsals in Alabino. According to the Defense Ministry, 31 of the 155 Nakhimov cadets who were in the capital were infected. “Novaya Gazeta, citing a relative of one of the cadets, reported that they arrived in Moscow in March 20 to prepare for the victory parade. Military officials speculated that initially the teacher was infected after contact with civilians.
According to Fontanka, a total of 501 patients and doctors from the hospital are under suspicion. Staff interviewed by Meduza believe that 70-80% of the remaining 700 people in quarantine will be infected with the virus. In total, 2458 cases of Covid-19 have been officially confirmed in St. Petersburg, with 17 deaths. The publication “Podiem” reported about the outbreak of coronavirus among cadets of the Kirov Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg in mid-April.
On April 22, Primorye authorities announced a major outbreak at Vladivostok Clinical Hospital No. 2 (known as the “thousandth bed” hospital). Coronavirus was detected in 42 people, 17 of whom were hospital staff. This is the largest hotspot of Covid-19 spread in the region – as of April 23, 185 people were officially infected in Primorye. During the quarantine, the surgical and urological departments of the hospital, where infected patients and doctors were found, were closed, according to PrimaMedia.ru. Those who had contact with the patients were transferred to a temporary hospital.
The staff of the Thousand-Bed Hospital in Vladivostok claims that only some doctors had access to full protection against the coronavirus. Pictured: emergency workers in Vladivostok. They stopped admitting new patients to the surgical department, but they didn’t close it for quarantine, leaving only duty shifts. It was only on April 20 that the hospital was sealed by order of the regional health minister, Anastasia Khudchenko. The hospital employee complained that the medical staff in the surgical department did not have protective suits or respirators. They were only given a “regular” hazmat suit on April 20, the day the hospital was sealed off. The carrier of the infection turned out to be a doctor who worked in the surgical and urology departments, Minister Khudchenko said. Among those infected were sanitary workers and nurses. The minister explained the complaints about the lack of protective equipment by saying that anti-plague suits, respirators, and goggles are issued only to doctors who work with infected people. Other medical personnel are provided with caps, medical masks, gowns, overshoes and gloves.
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