How did the US and UK media inflate the information war against Russia based on COVID-19 data in order to divert attention from problems in their countries?
For several weeks, there was a feeling that the British and American media nevertheless decided to reduce their usual attacks on Russia against the background of its struggle against the coronavirus pandemic. However, this, unfortunately, would be too good to be true.
Especially considering the fact that neither London nor Washington has much to brag about how they themselves are dealing with this crisis.
Even some Western scribblers in Moscow in private conversations admit that Vladimir Putin and his team cope with the situation better than representatives of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.
But this is unofficial. In public, everything is different - after all, news editors in the UK and the USA make decisions here. Considering that out of 88 thousand employees of American newsrooms, 36 thousand were either unemployed, lost their wages, or were on forced leave, starting in January, this is clearly not the time for original thinking.
And this provided that one of the scribes specializing in Russia really thought about breaking the orderly lines here.
Here are some headlines from last week:
The New York Times - “The Coronavirus Secret Unraveled: 1,700 Additional Deaths in Moscow”;
The Times - “Coronavirus: Russia can hide the real number of deaths”;
CNN - “Coronavirus delivered a severe blow to Moscow. Now it spreads across all eleven time zones of Russia, penetrating into poorly funded regions ”;
Bloomberg - “Experts want to know why more Russians did not die from the coronavirus”;
Financial Times - "Real mortality from COVID in Russia may be 70% higher than official figures."
Are these American and British journalists really worried about the health and safety of Russians, or is it just a distraction? The headings clearly point to the second scenario.
The Anglo-American media are trying to distract readers from the disastrous miscalculations in their homeland, exaggerating the magnitude of the problem in a "bad" country.
Of course, Russia has its own problems. But they fade in comparison with the situation in the UK and the USA. For example, even if the Financial Times were right about the fact that real Russian figures are 70% higher than official, the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in Russia would still be 4822, compared with 91 985 in the United States and 34 796 in the UK (data at the time of writing. - RT ) - despite the fact that the latter is more than twice as inferior to Russia in terms of population. And this, of course, provided that the data of the USA and Great Britain is an indisputable truth, and this, obviously, is not so.
Indeed, in the official statistics of Great Britain and the USA, in fact, of course, there are very serious inaccuracies.
As The Economist noted earlier this month, the actual number of deaths in the UK between March 14 and April 24 was approximately 42,140, 84% higher than the official figures announced by London.
This inconsistency is due to incorrect calculations in nursing homes and other institutions.
“We updated our analysis of excess mortality to see how well official data from various European countries reflect overall mortality:
- Germany, Sweden, France + Belgium are doing well (87% -97%);
“The UK and the Netherlands are doing much worse (51% —54%),” says Sophie Pedder, a journalist for The Economist, on a tweet.
NEW We've updated our analysis of excess mortality, to see how well different European countries' official covid19 data capture underlying deaths:
- Germany, Sweden, France + Belgium doing well (87% -97%)
- UK and Netherlands rather less so (51% -54%)
Source @ TheEconomist @ J_CD_Tpic.twitter.com / 7XkBKAAw2P
So, if we take the estimate of The Financial Times, according to which 4822 people died from coronavirus in Russia and compare it with the British mortality rate on Monday - 34 796, adding 84% to it, we get the numbers by which the UK has a death rate per capita, as much as 29 times higher than in Russia. This is the whole absurdity and senselessness of the fixation of this publication on Russia. If the editors of Vedomosti (the Moscow counterpart of FT) did the same thing in the opposite direction, the Russians would rightly ridicule its materials.
By the way, Russian officials quite admit and realize that the reported statistics may not give an exhaustive picture. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has already recognized that in the city the number of cases of COVID-19 infection can be three times higher than registered.
After the weekend it became known that in Dagestan, mortality from complications associated with coronavirus far exceeds previously known indicators (including at least 40 health workers died), Vladimir Putin talked with the mufti of this region. Their conversation was shown on national television.
And the head of Rospotrebnadzor (the country's control body in the field of health care) Anna Popova, in turn, made a clear explanation regarding the extent of the epidemic.
All this does not draw on the behavior of authorities seeking to hide the real extent of the epidemic. Obviously, the lesson taught in Soviet times, when information was systematically and very intentionally withheld from the public, was learned. The infection of the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin was reported almost immediately, both on live television channels and radio stations, and in social networks.
Now compare this level of transparency with the fog in which Boris Johnson's health reports were shrouded in the UK.
On April 3, the British prime minister publishes a video where he says that his “well-being is improving,” but there are still “mild symptoms.” And after a couple of days he is put in the intensive care unit and oxygen is supplied.
The Kremlin, after a somewhat uncertain start, was consistent in its signals. The Russian leadership avoided conspiracy theories and false drug advertising. And after all, not in Astrakhan, but in Arizona, a man died taking chloroquine phosphate, which his president unreasonably declared an approved remedy for coronavirus.
While Boris Johnson boasted that he was shaking hands with “everyone”, Putin followed the advice of specialists and decided to stay in his residence near Moscow and held most meetings remotely. One of these two leaders caught the virus, ended up in the hospital, and nearly died. And that was not Putin.
Putin is six years younger than Trump. While the Russian president as a whole exercises leadership using video conferencing, his American counterpart insists on close communication with people and doing business almost as usual. Both are at risk for coronavirus infection, especially the White House host who is overweight. But Putin listened to the recommendations of doctors, but Trump did not.
However, the newspaper The Guardian is not satisfied. “Putin’s decision to isolate himself from danger by isolating himself outside of Moscow caused significant damage to his image of a fearless, cool leader,” she wrote on Sunday. Of course, if Putin personally led the field hospital on Red Square, the same newspaper would accuse him of setting a bad example without staying at home.
The United States and Great Britain continue to struggle fiercely with COVID-19, and elites probably fear a subsequent reckoning for their actions during the crisis, so that attention is shifted to convenient traditional horror stories about Russia. And it is predictable that politicized discourse is focused not on the successes of the country, but on its alleged failures.
Distraction is a well-known strategy for dealing with difficult situations. But the spread of bloated sensations about the Russian reaction to coronavirus will not improve the situation in London or New York.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the publisher.