Covid-19 Vaccines›

• Vaccine Questions
• Doses Per State
• Distribution Delays
• How 9 Vaccines Work

Why I Got the Russian Vaccine

• Jan. 8, 2021

MOSCOW — A nurse, needle in hand, asked me brusquely if I was ready. I said yes. A quick injection followed, then instructions to wait a half-hour in the hospital corridor for the possibility of anaphylactic shock, which thankfully never came.

Last Monday, I put aside my misgivings and got the first dose of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, called Sputnik V, made at a factory outside of Moscow from genetically modified human cold viruses.

Like so much else in Russia, the rollout of Sputnik V was entangled in politics and propaganda, with President Vladimir V. Putin announcing its approval for use even before late-stage trials began. For months, it was pilloried by Western scientists. Like many Russian citizens distrustful of the new vaccine, saying they would wait to see how things turned out before getting it themselves, I had my doubts.

Consider how the rollout went: With the approval back in August, Russian health officials were quick to assert they had won the vaccine race, just as the country had won the space race decades ago with the Sputnik satellite. In fact, at the time, several other vaccine candidates were further along in testing.

When Moderna then reported 94.1 percent efficacy, the Russian company again claimed superiority, saying it achieved 95 percent. Officials later conceded, when the late-stage trials were complete, that Sputnik V’s results showed an efficacy rate of 91.4 percent.While public apprehension hasn’t completely subsided, and the developers have yet to release detailed data on adverse events observed during the trials, the Russian government has now vaccinated about one million of its own citizens and exported Sputnik V to Belarus, Argentina and other countries, suggesting that any harmful side effects overlooked during trials would by now have come to light.

In the end, the politicized rollout only served to obscure the essentially good trial results — what appears to be a bona fide accomplishment for Russian scientists continuing a long and storied practice of vaccine development.Continue reading the main storn the Soviet period, tamping down infectious diseases was a public health priority at home and exporting vaccines to the developing world an element of Cold War diplomacy.

The Soviet Union and United States cooperated in eliminating smallpox through vaccination. Virology was central to the Soviet Union’s biological weapons program, which continued in secrecy long after a 1975 treaty banned the weapons.

In 1959, a husband-and-wife team of Soviet scientists successfully tested the first live polio virus vaccine using their own children as the first trial subjects. That followed a Russian tradition of medical researchers testing potentially harmful products on themselves first.

Last spring, the chief developer of Sputnik V, Aleksandr L. Gintsburg, followed in this custom by injecting himself even before the announcement that animal trials had wrapped up.Continue reading the main st

Russian promoters have compared the vaccine to the Kalashnikov rifle, simple and effective in its operation. I was even lucky in avoiding some of the common side effects of Sputnik V, such as a raging headache or a fever.

With many of my fears alleviated, another reason I chose to get inoculated with a product of Russian genetic engineering was more basic: It was available. Russian clinics have not been dogged by the lines or logistical snafus reported at vaccination sites in the United States and other countries.

In Moscow, the best days of winter come in early January as the country slumbers through a weeklong holiday, the traffic thins and the city’s bustling chaos gives way to a quiet, snowy beauty. Vaccination sites were also lightly attended.ntinue reading the main storussia’s vaccination campaign began with medical workers and teachers and then expanded. It is now open to people older than 60 or with underlying conditions that render them vulnerable to more severe disease, and to people working in a widening list of professions deemed to be at high risk: bank tellers, city government workers, professional athletes, bus drivers, police officers and, conveniently for me, journalists. It’s unclear whether Russia’s production capacity is sufficient to meet demand long term.

For now, with so many Russians deeply skeptical of their medical system and the vaccine, there is no great clamor for the shot. The first site I visited, while reporting back in December, closed early because so few people had turned up.

In the capital, the vaccine has, paradoxically, appealed to educated people, a group that is traditionally a hotbed of political opposition to Mr. Putin, the chief promoter of the vaccine. When it came to a decision about health, many rolled up their sleeves.

"I got the second component of Sputnik in my shoulder," Andrei Desnitsky, an academic at the Institute of Oriental Studies who has been chronicling his experience with vaccination, wrote on Facebook.ontinue reading the main storyo followers posting comments, he said, "hysterics in the style of ‘You sold out, you bastard, to the bloody regime’ and ‘They take us all for idiots,’ will be deleted."

Like Mr. Desnitsky, I was willing to take my chances. At Polyclinic No. 5 on a snowy morning, I filled out a form asking about chronic diseases, blood disorders or heart ailments. I showed my press pass as proof of my profession. A doctor asked a few questions about allergies. I waited an hour or so for my turn in a beige-tiled hospital corridor.

Sitting nearby was Galina Chupyl, a 65-year-old municipal worker. What did she think of getting vaccinated?

"I am happy, of course," she said. "Nobody wants to get sick."

I agreed.ontinue reading the main story