Russian Senator Alexey Pushkov in his Telegram channel expressed the opinion that the New York Times is not going to refute the article on statistics COVID-19 in Russia.
In his opinion, this situation recalls that any requirement has effect only when failure to do so will follow or can be followed by retaliatory measures.
"Requirement, likely not backed by sanctions, is nothing more than an exercise in rhetoric", — concluded the Senator.
Earlier the newspaper published an article "the mystery of the coronavirus explained in Moscow 1700 additional deaths." Citing data from the Moscow government the article States that the mortality rate in the city in April exceeded the average for the past five years to 1.7 thousand. The official death toll from the coronavirus in Moscow at the time of publication was $ 642. The newspaper concluded that "a significant underestimation of the" statistics, while the open data portal of the municipality was not informed about the cause of death or the reason of growth of indicators.
The edition admitted that in other countries was the surge in number of deaths coincided with the pandemic coronavirus infection.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said that Russia has never manipulated the official statistics. The who also noted that in Russia there is no deliberate underreporting of mortality due to coronavirus infection.
The state Duma Commission asked the foreign Ministry to take measures to NYT and Financial Times, issued a similar material, after articles about COVID-19 until the withdrawal of accreditation in Russia. The head of the Commission’s Efforts Pisarev called the appearance of such articles based on speculation, not valid for a-level publications.
The official representative of the foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said that to send the editors of publications prepared letters demanding to refute the misinformation about COVID-19 in the country. They should give editors-in-chief through the embassies in the UK and the USA.
Recent data on the situation of COVID-19 in Russia and the world presented on the portal stopmanager.of the Russian Federation.
