PUTIN NEEDS TO ADMIT RUSSIA STOLE OUR VACCINE
WHICH was the first government to approve a vaccine against Covid, and thus get a head start in protecting its people against infection?
Contrary to widespread belief, it was not the UK. No, that prize goes to the Russian government of Vladimir Putin. But when, many months ago, I made this point to a friend involved in the British government’s vaccine programme, he exclaimed: ‘But that’s because their spies stole the Oxford/AstraZeneca data!’
Now it has been reported that our security services have proof of this. In fact, the late James Brokenshire — when a minister responsible for overseeing these matters — said last year that he had ‘confidence’ in the belief that the Kremlin’s agents had been hacking UK bodies developing a Covid vaccine.
There are indeed technological similarities between the Russian vaccine (known as Sputnik V, in honour of the Russians’ trailblazing space satellite of 1957) and the Oxford formula. Naturally, the Kremlin dismisses the allegation as a mere smear.
But here’s the real irony: far from being inspired by this apparent triumph of their own government, the Russian people are intensely suspicious of the Sputnik vaccine, and even though it was available to them from the beginning of last December, only about a third of the population have taken it.
The result is that Russian deaths from Covid-19 have just hit the 1,000-a-day mark.
Last week, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, urged the Russian people: ‘It is really irresponsible not to get vaccinated.’
One of the problems, however, is that it’s partly because it is a Russian vaccine that it is being spurned. One Muscovite, Samyr Oynushev, told NBC news: ‘If I had a choice, I would rather take a non-Russian vaccine.
‘I think that [low vaccination rates] are primarily the fault of the government, that people don’t trust them so much.’ And Vasily Vlassov, an epidemiologist, pointed out: ‘Russians know German cars are better than Russia’s cars, and they have a problem believing a Russian vaccine is better.’
The point behind his remark is that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (the first to be used in the UK) was created and developed in Germany.
As it happens, the Sputnik vaccine is highly effective and safe — just like the Oxford one. So here’s a suggestion for Putin. Admit that Sputnik was based on the Oxford/Astra Zeneca data, stolen or not. Do that and your people might be much less nervous about rolling up their sleeves.