Harsher Measures

STRICTER MEASURES SET TO BE IMPOSED

By Stephen Wilson    

 

             An unreal situation has arisen in Moscow.  Something surreal surfaces all the time here. Just as my Australian friend was lamenting on how his flight to Russia had been cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis I noticed a strange man passing by my window casually coolly  riding a 19th century penny bicycle. He fell off and then got on again. And as I got up at seven a.m. to go shopping I was confronted by a group of council workers advancing up the road sweeping all the dust before them. They were performing this task in such a strident manner I thought they would sweep me out of their way. I was wondering whether they saw me as some inconvenient obstacle impeding their progress. But now I have noticed that every morning, without fail, they ritually perform such a duty. When I arrived to buy the milk I read instructions that I had to keep 1.5 meters from the staff while making a purchase. The staff were all wearing gloves and masks. 

     

             Now, after two weeks, I have noticed that almost half the people on the streets of Moscow are dawning masks.

 

             If you want to go to the Moscow English Theater for light escapism forget it. The theater will be performing a play adapted from Daniel Defoe's work On the Great Plague of London. But how people can watch this performance might be problematic given strict quarantine rules.

 

             Over the past few days the Moscow mayor and police have been tightening up in enforcing quarantine regulations which they fear too many people are flouting.

             The Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed that an estimated 20% of the population are failing to observe the rules on Quarantine. The number of people being infected by

the virus has shot up within the space of a few weeks from a few hundred to beyond the 10,000 mark. And even Russian politicians openly admit this is an underestimate.

  

             The Russian state has enlisted the support of famous actors to make a public appeal to people 'to stay at home' for the sake of not only their health but their family'. On every entrance door way you can read the instructions on how to observe the quarantine, such as 'Keep a social distance of 1.5 meters from people, only leave your home to go shopping , dispose rubbish, to go to work and to walk your dog no further than 100 meters.´ Going out for a walk in the park or even taking children out into the nearby playground is strictly forbidden. Social police patrols and cars glide along the road stopping people and asking what their business is.

             Attempts are being made to extend a wider surveillance system where cameras are recording people going in or out of their homes.

             A group of people fishing in a public place was told that their group would have to pay a 15,000 ruble fine for violating the quarantine by a policeman on duty. But on other occasions the situation could look comical and absurd. A jogger in a forest park who was stopped by police continued to jog even as he was being interviewed and warned. Generally speaking, people who are stopped can expect a fine from 4000 to 5000 rubles and heaver fines should they repeat offences. But there are still ambiguities about how people should observe this law. People keep asking anxiously, Will I be fined just for dropping into the chemist or taking my dog for a walk? How do you prove that you are actually going shopping or not? Perhaps you'd have to say you are going to the nearest shop to your house or not walking you dog beyond 100 meters. A business man who has three dogs asked me, "My dog will only do the toilet habitually in one place and not within 100 meters." The worst thing is that people are not allowed to even go out to do exercise as in Britain or Sweden.

 

             A lawyer, Vitaly Negova Macdhugaill from Krasnodar has noticed huge contrasts in the opinion on the spread of the virus. He states: ¨There are different opinions on the Covid 19 in Russia. Some people are of the opinion that the virus is no more dangerous than a standard flu .{I am not among them } and they are against the strict quarantine measures. They are also deeply concerned that those measures can ruin all business {particularly small businesses.} I think I am well aware what is going on with Coronavirus and I don't think it is a joke and not dangerous." In deed, the recent death of a 36- year-old journalist from Perm, Anastasia Petrova, from what now seems to be an in infection from the virus rather than just a previously diagnosed 'double pneumonia' should serve to emphasize this is not another case of the flu as many people still claim.

 

             The quarantine is set to last until the first of May, but many people believe it may be extended.  The result of this is a fall in consumption, loss of jobs and many small businesses going to the wall. Many people have a lot of time on their hands.

             For many workaholics this amounts to a shock. They are not used to working from home or doing little. A businessman told me, "Now it is much easier for me to contact my business partners. They are now more accessible because they are at home. The same goes for my partners in India or Germany."

 

             But for Russian school teachers and school children, there is no reprieve from work.

             On the contrary, their work has intensified. A colleague who works at school told me, "I have been working from 6 a.m. in the morning until late at night everyday. I am very fatigued from working at both the school and an institute. My eyes hurt from spending so much time before a computer screen doing those on-line lessons.

             ¨What I found strange was that I was being asked to take a first aid course and even write a grammar text book when I have no time left from the teaching."

             The toll on physical and mental health from too much exposure to on-line teaching has hardly been addressed. Online teaching appears to be a kind of panacea for the problem of teaching school children during the closure of schools.

             The early euphoria being experienced by some children and even some shop assistants has almost faded. When my wife asked staff at a nearby stationary whether they would be working during quarantine, they replied, "No, thank God we can have a rest." A few weeks ago the mayor emphasized to school students: "You are not on holiday! School work continues." Police were often dismayed to  

discover some people had a laid back attitude to the Quarantine where people were going to parks to party, have a barbecue or even sunbathe.  A real fear exists among the authorities that after two or three weeks people will be lulled into thinking that, "Well, I am not infected so there is no real threat, so it is time to come out and enjoy the Spring sunshine. " Hence the constant public announcements that stronger measures to maintain the quarantine will be enforced. It seems like this quarantine could last longer that people wished or anticipated. The exact economic and social repercussions are anyone's guess.