Russia says Vladimir Putin has received first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, offers no photos

Russian authorities have said that President Vladimir Putin has received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on March 23 but failed to mention either the details of the jab or pictures of him being inoculated. As per the Washington Post report, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a text message following a conference call that Putin got the injection on Tuesday and ‘feels good’ before adding “He has a full work day tomorrow”. Peskov reportedly declined to mention which of the three approved shots by the Russian government was received by Putin. 

Kremlin spokesperson also said that “As for getting vaccinated on camera, he’s never been a fan of that.” As per the report, the Russian President’s reluctance to get the jabs after the announcement of the country kickstarting its vaccination drive in December has mirrored the approach of several citizens. Reportedly Russians remain to vary of domestically-developed Sputnik V inoculation tat earlier Putin has hailed as the world’s first coronavirus vaccine set to use. Apart from Sputnik V, Russia has approved two more domestically developed vaccines against COVID-19. 

As per the report, initially, Kremlin had declined to say when or if Putin would get vaccinated after Sputnik V was approved in August 2020 while he was lobbying other world leaders that the shots were safe as well as efficient against the novel coronavirus. The 68-year-old Russian President said late last year that he was waiting for coronavirus vaccines to be cleared for people in his age group. Eventually, when regulators approved the jabs for use among seniors, Putin’s spokesperson said in February that the Russian President was waiting because he had other vaccinations already scheduled. 

4.3% of Russia’s population vaccinated

As per the report, at the start of the year, the authorities had hoped to provide the first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine to more than 20 million people by the end of March. However, Post reported that only 6.3 million or 4.3% of Russia’s population have started the process to date and the country is staggering behind several other nations in its coverage rate. Reportedly, Putin has also alerted the officials this week that they must vaccinate nearly 70 million people in a bid to reach herd immunity by this summer.

(Image: AP)