The best news of the last season of 2020 was the creation of vaccines against coronavirus: according to the most optimistic forecasts of experts. At the end of this year, five vaccines for adults were registered in Russia: Sputnik V, Sputnik Light, Epivakkorona, Epivakkorona-N, Kovivak, and even one for adolescents – Sputnik M. All of them are domestic. Not a single foreign vaccine was allowed on the market for a year, although there were applicants, for example, from the Chinese company CanSino.

Despite the fact that the Russian vaccine appeared one of the first in the world, the choice of indicators is diverse, according to the vaccinated, our country ranks 92nd with an indicator of 44.6% of the fully vaccinated population. It is overtaken by countries with a variety of political regimes, economies and sizes of territories – from China (87% of the population) and Turkey (65%) to the United States (63%) and Honduras (48%), follows from the data of the project “Our World in Data”, the research team is based at Oxford University.

Over the year, the attitude of Russians towards vaccinations against coronavirus has changed for the better, follows from polls by VTsIOM. In December 2020, only 38% of Russians surveyed were going to be vaccinated, while the majority of respondents (52%) were against vaccination. By the end of 2021, the number of opponents of vaccination decreased to 29% of those surveyed. And those who were going to be vaccinated probably did it: 42% of those surveyed said they had been vaccinated. At the same time, a new group of people (27% of respondents) has appeared who are not against the vaccine, but for some reason have not yet done it, the December poll of VTsIOM showed with the same sample.

On December 24, the collective immunity to coronavirus in Russia reached 60.4%, the federal headquarters reported. This indicator includes both vaccinated and recovered. At the final press conference in late December, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimates this low level and expects to achieve population immunity of 80% at the end of the 1st quarter – in the 2nd quarter of 2022. Perhaps later, the authorities will increase this figure to 90% or more.

At the same time, the authorities are clearly not ready to go for radical methods of imposing vaccination against covid, no matter what targets are set by doctors. Putin has said more than once that having a sufficient level of vaccination can be blamed and competent argumentation. But, judging by the analysis of statistics, explanatory work and even “goodies”, for example, drawing of apartments and gifts from the authorities, have not yet become an obvious trigger for Russians to stimulate vaccinations. Fear, first of all, before the disease itself becomes the engine.

Our world data in the data and the Stopcoronavirus.rf website show that the number of vaccinated people grew smoothly, parallel to the beginning waves of coronavirus. The first such upsurge, when people went to get vaccinated, happened on June 28th. Then, from 8,000-9,000 cases in May per day, the indicator jumped to 21,700 new cases per day. By the end of the wave in September, the intensity of vaccination with the first component subsided. The second rise in Russians’ interest in vaccinations came on 15 October. By that time, the incidence had reached 32,300 new cases per day, compared with 17,000-18,000 per day in September. The doubling of the incidence rates along with the inevitably growing number of deaths of people being vaccinated.

According to Vedomosti’s estimates, the number of deaths in Russia from December 2020 to November 2021 alone exceeded 2.4 million people. This is the worst period since 1945. And the contribution to supermortality was made by covid and unwillingness to be vaccinated, according to demographers.