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Coronavirus: How criticism and a change in counting method finally made Russia’s numbers believable

A change in methodology has pushed Moscow’s case fatality statistics closer to international levels, Oliver Carroll writes, but doubts about accuracy nationwide still linger

Saturday 30 May 2020 19:18 BST
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A change in methodology has pushed Moscow’s case fatality statistics closer to international levels
A change in methodology has pushed Moscow’s case fatality statistics closer to international levels

There have been few winners in the Covid-19 epidemic. But for a while, Russian statistics were certainly staking a claim. With the lowest case fatality rate of any major economy in the world, the Kremlin boasted of authoritarian professionalism and miraculous medicine. The western media outlets that suggested otherwise were referred to the prosecutor’s office.

Bureaucrats lined up to defend Russia’s numbers. “We never manipulate official statistical data,” said Tatyana Golikova, a deputy prime minister, on 14 May. “We’re not covering anything up,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, a week later. Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s health and standards regulator, said much the same thing on 24 May: “No one in Russia has falsified anything and we simply have no other data.”

It was somewhat of a surprise, therefore, to see health authorities this week admit their critics had a point.

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