Russian healthcare system under strain from COVID

Russia's health care system, which is vast but underfunded, has been under significant strain in recent weeks, as coronavirus cases surge again, with daily infections and virus death regularly breaking records.

Across the country, 81% of hospital beds that have been set aside for coronavirus patients were full on Wednesday.

In addition, the Russian government reported a record number of daily deaths three times last week, and the number of daily new infections per 100,000 people has more than doubled since Oct. 1, from 6 to over 15.

Overall, Russia has recorded over 2 million cases and over 35,000 deaths, but experts say all numbers worldwide understate the true toll of the pandemic.

Reports in Russian media of the healthcare system's ability to respond to the surge have painted a bleak picture in recent weeks.

Hospital corridors are filled with patients on gurneys, with some left to sit in chairs in waiting rooms.

A video shot by Yelizaveta Titova, a visitor to Tomsk hospital, shows patients lying in hospital halls, struggling to breathe with their hands being signed with a marker pens by doctors.

But Russian authorities have continued to insist there is no need for a nationwide lockdown or widespread closures of businesses, instead urging people to observe social distancing measures ordered by regional governments.

During the autumn resurgence of the virus, the Kremlin has consistently pointed fingers at regional governors.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told governors they had "recieved broad powers for "anti-pandemic measures" in a video conference last week.

"No one is exempt from personal responsibility for decisions taken - or decisions not taken in time", he said.

But Valentin Konovalov, Governor of the Khakassia region, has claimed that Russia's health care system has limits, giving a statement on his Instagram profile, while infected with COVID-19.

In most regions, those measures don't go beyond mask mandates, limiting the hours of bars and restaurants, ordering the elderly to self-isolate, forbidding mass public events and requiring employers to have some staff work from home.

But appetite for a full lockdown to quell rising cases is minimal - a partial six-week coronavirus lockdown in March only added to long-brewing public frustrations over Russia's already weakened economy.

In addition, Putin delegated the powers to impose virus-related restrictions to regional governors, a move which critics saw as an effort to inoculate himself from any more fallout over the pandemic.

But just like the Kremlin, governments in the vast majority of Russian regions have resisted giving the order to shut businesses or impose lockdowns, with the exception of the Siberian republic of Buryatia, where last week the region's governor ordered cafes, restaurants, bars, malls, cinemas, beauty parlours and saunas to shut down for two weeks.

Putin has so thoroughly centralised power that regional governors are not used to acting independently, noted Judy Twigg, a professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, specialising in global health.

"They don't want to take the blame to be inconveniencing people, to be putting unpopular restrictions in place, and then they also don't want to continue to take the blame as things go wrong. It's really handy to have regional governors to blame for what's going on," she said about Russian authorities' actions.

In the meantime, many Russian regions are buckling under the growing tide of patients.

In Buryatia, the Siberian republic that has imposed the country's strictest measures, the regional authorities imposed a total lockdown.

Dr. Tatyana Symbelova told the AP that as the number of patients rose, her hospital kept adding beds in halls of the hospital.

"Without people's self-isolation and social distancing, we can't handle this situation. In in-patient care we have an extra facility, we have up to 30 patients hospitalised per day and a full intensive care," she said.