In Russia, virus toll is open secret

SAMARA, Russia — She burst into the hospital morgue, and the bodies were everywhere, about a dozen of them in black bags on stretchers. She headed straight for the autopsy room, pleading with the guard in a black jacket, “Can I speak to the doctor who opened up my father?”

Olga Kagarlitskaya’s father had been hospitalized weeks earlier in a coronavirus ward. Now he was gone, cause of death: “viral pneumonia, unspecified.” Kagarlitskaya, recording the scene on her smartphone, wanted to know the truth. But the guard, hands in pockets, sent her away.

There were thousands of similar cases across Russia last year, the government’s own statistics show. At least 300,000 more people died last year during the coronavirus pandemic than were reported in Russia’s most widely cited official statistics.

Not all of those deaths were necessarily from the virus. But they belie President Vladimir Putin’s contention that the country has managed the virus better than most. In reality, a New York Times analysis of mortality data shows deaths in Russia during the pandemic last year were 28 percent higher than normal.

“People didn’t know the objective situation,” Kagarlitskaya said. “And if you don’t know the objective situation, you are not afraid.”

For much of the last year, Russia has appeared more focused on the public relations and economic aspects of the pandemic than on fighting the virus itself. After a harsh two-month lockdown last spring, the government largely lifted restrictions last summer, a boon for public opinion and the economy, even as the disease spread more rapidly.

The official Russian coronavirus death toll of 102,649 as of Saturday is far lower, when adjusted for the population, than that of the U.S. and most of Western Europe.

However, a far different story is told by the official statistics agency Rosstat, which tallies deaths from all causes. Russia saw a jump of 360,000 deaths above normal from last April through December, according to a Times analysis of historical data. Rosstat figures for January and February of this year show the number is now well above 400,000.

“It’s hard to find a worse developed country” in terms of COVID-19 mortality, said Aleksei Raksha, an independent demographer in Moscow. “The government is doing all it can to avoid highlighting these facts.”