Don’t worry — we’re dealing with it.That, in essence, is Russia’s official line following the death of a plague lab worker in Siberia.
And it may be justified.After all, there is no verified information to suggest the risk of a Russian epidemic, let alone another feared global pandemic after one that’s still raw in minds worldwide.
And it’s never been verified that it was even plague at all.But that central mystery is partly what’s caused so much unease from the White House, the World Health Organization and many Western experts.The concerns are threefold.A full week after the death of the worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, officials still have not specified the underlying illness that killed her, saying only it was “pneumonia of unknown origin.” Meanwhile they have triggered a widespread set of countermeasures, indicating they are taking whatever has happened seriously.
And hanging over all this is the historical context of Moscow’s biological weapons program, which it denies still exists, and its record of covering up disasters that could imperil other nations.Add to GoogleWHO seeks answers and clarity over plague lab death in Russia04:45“It is the Russian reaction to this that has been out of proportion and raises serious concerns,” Dr.Tom Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Maryland, told NBC News.
“Why aren’t Russian authorities just being concrete and direct?” Scant information Coloring all of this is the painful memory of what happened when China — another opaque, authoritarian regime — suppressed and withheld information in the early weeks of the Covid pandemic.Right from the start, information released by Russian officials has been incomplete or hazy.Alexey Tsydenov, head of neighboring Russian republic of Buryatia, initially said that the woman had “died of plague,” before updating his post to add the word “possibly.” Then the governor ...