The Majority Of Russian People Do Not Believe In The Sputnik V Vaccine, They Are Threatened With Dismissal If They Refuse To Be Vaccinated

JAKARTA - Moscow authorities continue to make various efforts to suppress the number of cases of COVID-19 infection which has recently surged in the capital.

One way is by 'mandatory' a voluntary COVID-19 vaccination. This refers to the fact that vaccination rates are still low in the city.

"Vaccinations remain voluntary," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Despite being called voluntary, those who refuse a COVID-19 vaccine are at risk of losing their jobs, as quoted by CNN, Tuesday, June 29.

Faced with extremely low vaccination rates, Moscow authorities more than a week ago announced that at least 60 percent of staff in the service industry, ranging from catering, housing and transportation, must have been vaccinated with at least one dose by 15 July.

"If a Muscovite works in the service sector and he has to get vaccinated but he chooses not to be vaccinated, he must stop working in the service sector. But, if he wants, he can find work elsewhere that is not related to the area where vaccination is mandatory. ," he explained.

Not only workers, owners of workplaces or businesses are also threatened with fines, if they cannot meet the vaccination target of their employees or workers according to the provisions.

Starting Monday, people in Moscow are required to show proof of vaccination, negative PCR test result or evidence of having recovered from COVID-19 in the past six months, to be allowed into cafes and restaurants in the city.

The surge in COVID-19 cases in Russia in recent times has made the authorities routinely provide regular updates on television and social media. Yesterday, Russia recorded a record daily death from COVID-19 of 652 people,

"Over the past week, we have broken new records for the number of hospitalizations, people in intensive care and the number of deaths from the coronavirus," Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Monday, according to state media office RIA Novosti.

As of Monday, 23 million people in Russia had been vaccinated with at least one dose, the health minister told state media. Meanwhile, about 16.7 million people have had both injections, according to figures released by the government last week, or about 11 percent.

To increase this figure, the head of Russia's public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova said mandatory vaccination could be introduced in other regions of the Red Bear Country if necessary.

Moreover, Russian citizens are also hesitant about the domestically made Sputnik V vaccine. A survey published last month by the independent pollster Levada-Center showed 62 percent of Russians would not be vaccinated with Sputnik V.

"There is a crisis of public confidence in political and medical institutions. There is no clear and transparent information about the vaccination process, so we are looking for ways to get around the system," Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist and researcher at Moscow's RANEPA university, told CNN.

For information, launching Worldomters, Russia recorded a total of 5,514,599 cases of COVID-19 infection with a total death toll of 135,214 and 5,000,393 patients recovered as of Wednesday, June 30.