What is happening in Siberia and the great fear of a lack of transparency

The Anti-Plague Institute in the town of Shelekhov, in the Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, employs around ninety-five researchers. Last Tuesday, a female researcher from the laboratory was admitted to hospital and died two days later from pneumonia ‘of unknown origin’. It was difficult for the news to remain confined to the remote reaches of Siberia, and shortly after the death of the twenty-eight-year-old woman, the name of the suspected disease – one that historically accompanies wars and dark periods, and is associated with punishments and plagues sent by divine wrath – appeared in the local press: the plague.

It is easy to chase after myths in distant Siberia, to imagine the laboratory, the virus that strikes a young woman and kills her, and for which hundreds more people are then placed in isolation across the vast territory of the country that has brought war back to Europe. Beyond the myths, however, the facts known so far are few and far between, and therein lies one of the biggest problems: the fear generated by the lack of transparency. We know that 189 people have been placed under observation. We know that five hospitals are being monitored.

It is known that Rospotrebnadzor – the Russian agency responsible for infectious diseases, whose staff arrived in Italy in 2020 as part of the military-medical-espionage mission organised in the early stages of the pandemic, with the approval of the Italian government – has sent experts to the Irkutsk region and has declined to comment to CNN. It is known that the Kremlin has urged Russians not to believe news coming from outside the country. It is known, as reported by the local press, that although life in Shelekhov appears to be continuing as usual, residents are beginning to panic as reports of lockdowns and quarantines mount. It is known that some countries bordering Russia, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, have tightened border controls for fear of the spread of pneumonic plague. It is known that citizens in towns near Shelekhov are being advised not to travel. It is also known that some are calling for flights from Russia to be suspended.

The last case of the plague in Russia was in 2016, when a ten-year-old boy in the Altai Republic, also in Siberia, was infected. It was a different world – the same Russia, yet one that was still regarded by many as a partner in dialogue. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, exacerbated by Beijing’s lack of transparency, the absence of clear information is alarming. Moscow remains silent; in the town of Shelekhov, speculation is rife and runs rampant, whilst Russians themselves tend to have little faith in what the authorities say: this also happened during the pandemic, when many refused the Sputnik V vaccine due to a lack of trust in the state-led vaccination campaign. Meanwhile, Ukraine is watching, without panic, but mindful of how little it can do to contain the armed and battered border that divides it from Russia.