Thread by @Aaron_Derfel

1) In his zeal to start a war and invade Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin has neglected his own people as so-called excess deaths have surged past more than one million during the #COVID crisis. In this thread, I will return to the subject of pandemics and war.

2) “Russia, for instance,” notes Nature magazine, “reported more than 300,000 COVID-19 deaths by the end of 2021, but is likely to have exceeded 1 million excess deaths in that time.” Russia has presumably under-counted #COVID deaths in the lead-up to its invasion of Ukraine.

3) In 2021, Russia experienced its sharpest population decline since the end of the Soviet Union three decades earlier, according to the Moscow Times. Russia had only one short lockdown during spring 2020 and less than half the population has received two vaccine doses.

4) As Putin has prepared for war, Russia is likely in the grip of an #Omicron-driven wave of death, as the chart by Our World in Data suggests. The rate of 5.24 deaths per million population is probably an under-count because of low vaccination and war censoring. See below.

5) Presumably, all of Russia’s 150,000 troops attacking Ukraine right now have received the Sputnik V vaccine, seeking to avoid the mortal fate of so many soldiers during the First World War, which coincided with the 1918 flu pandemic.

6) In a Jan. 20 pre-print study funded by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (can anyone say conflict of interest?) Italian researchers found the Sputnik V vaccine was more than twice as effective as the Pfizer-BioNTech dose against #Omicron. Is that really so?

7) As Putin’s War drags on, one can foresee the #Omicron contagion spreading among the desperate citizens and soldiers of Ukraine. Sadly, only 34.3% of Ukraine’s population has been fully vaccinated. Thus, is this invasion also an indirect form of biowarfare?

8) COVID deaths have already been climbing in Ukraine, likely as a result of #Omicron and its stealth sub-variant BA.2. Ukraine’s rate of #COVID deaths per million population is now more than three times higher than Canada’s rate. Please review the comparative chart below.

9) And as Russian missiles rain down on Ukraine, they will likely damage critical infrastructure, making it all the more difficult to contain the spreading contagion of the #coronavirus. How many more COVID-infected Ukrainians will die as a result of this unprovoked aggression?

10) The First World War exacerbated the 1918 pandemic and vice versa. It would be reasonable to expect this will also happen during the largest European land invasion since the Second World War. It might even backfire on Russia, but does Putin even care? End of thread.