The New Yorker is greatly exaggerating in describing the situation concerning the coronavirus in the Russian North. The author accuses the local authorities in connivance oil and gas companies that allegedly did not take steps to protect their workers from Covid-19. But the epidemic has not yet reached its peak, and an increase in patients — a natural phenomenon.
the Joshua Yaffa (Yaffa Joshua)
Talk about quarantine in the village Belokamenka located in the Barents sea, began in early April. From 2017 there in shifts work tens of thousands of construction workers from all over Russia and also from China, Turkey and Central Asia. They build the Center of large offshore structures for LNG project of NOVATEK, one of Russia’s largest private energy companies. The project cost $ 21 billion.
In the beginning of the month, some workers wrote in social networks about the fact that after his arrival in Belokamenka they were placed on mandatory quarantine, allegedly to reside among them infected not to spread the coronavirus across the vast site. Many quarantine lasted only four to five days is recommended by health authorities two weeks and the newly-arrived and put to quarantine the workers lived together in cramped dormitories and ate together in the communal dining room. On the posted video you can see how hundreds of workers stand in line at the checkpoint or waiting for test for the coronavirus.
After a few days tests for Covid-19 dozens of workers from the construction site in Belokamenka gave a positive result. By mid-April the number had increased to two hundred. The local administration declared a state of emergency, and doctors from the Federal Ministry of emergency situations deployed directly on the snow near the construction site of a field hospital. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not particularly interfere in the situation with coronavirus, leaving the Ministers and governors themselves to take responsibility for addressing it, and to punishment. He harshly criticized the current situation Belokamenka. As writes authoritative independent Novaya Gazeta, the meeting with the regional leaders and the President even used the word “carelessness”.
Working in Belokamenka head of a construction organization in their press release stated that it “continues to implement a comprehensive antiepidemic and preventive measures”. When I approached some workers at a construction site in Belokamenka, they said that even in the face of infection, almost nothing has changed. Those who have a positive result of the tests, isolated in separate hostels; and those who remained on “green” or “healthy” side of the huge construction site, continued��ayut to live and work in the same rhythm. Workers carry to and from work in cramped vans, they are forced to wait their turn in the dining room and sleep in the dormitories with six people in the room. Doctors allegedly regularly measures the working temperature, but said one of them, if you worked the night shift, you hardly ever check. No masks, no gloves, no antispetic, and bosses almost anything they do not inform.
“Everything is kept secret, secret, — said one worker. Therefore, there is no panic, I guess.” But one thing is clear. “The closer we live, the more will be infected,” said the man.
As of Monday in Belokamenka was officially registered 867 cases Сovid-19. In most Russian regions cases less. Russian service Bi-Bi-si said that in Belokamenka “the largest recorded outbreak in Russia.”
In the mid-and late March, when the coronavirus began to hit Europe and the United States, Russia had surprisingly little infected. On 25 March, when Russia had 500 confirmed cases, I wrote an article that asked, and I will not spare whether Russia pandemic Covid-19 thanks to a combination of such circumstances as pure luck and early prevention. A month passed, and the answer is clear: no, I will not spare.
Today in Russia, more than 90,000 cases of infection, and the incidence curve remains stubbornly creeping up. The rate of growth of the incidence, she came in second place in the world, second only to the United States. (In recent days, the pace of growth has slowed somewhat, amounting to seven percent per day.) More than half of the cases occur in Moscow, which logically became the epicenter of infection, as it is closely connected with the whole world and has a greater population density.
In the provinces the foci of infection are hospitals, nursing homes and parishes. This tragic pattern, is also celebrated across Europe. But one of the features of the virus in Russia is that it is distributed in remote settlements of the Arctic, such as Belokamenka, which exist in order to serve highly profitable oil and gas industry. Cut off from the outside world by geography and climate, these communities are connected with Russia and the outside world through the visitors to watch the workers. And in terms of the pandemic, these workers become dangerous carriers of the virus.
In recent weeks in a number of distant oil and gas fields of Siberia and Yakutia (the Russian Republic five times the size of France) are having their own localized Сovid-19. Dozens of people have contracted the coronavirus in the Chayandinskoye gas field in Yakutia, which is pumping most of the gas in the pipeline “Power of Siberia”.
This pipeline has become has funda��the energy agreement between Russia and China for 400 billion dollars, which was signed in 2014. On Monday evening, hundreds of workers came out to protest against the conditions of life and work on the watch. Video of the riot appeared on the Internet. There is one worker in the crowd shouted: “what are We, pig?” Another said: “Where is the quarantine? Where is the mask? Herded us all into the hostel, where we catch God knows what”. The Governor of Yakutia announced that all 10,000 workers from Chayanda field tested, and although the results are not ready yet, “the number of patients there is negligible”.
Another hot spot was the Sabetta port on the Kara sea, which is a transport hub for shipment of liquefied natural gas from the Yamal Peninsula. This area is permafrost with a length of 650 kilometres into the Arctic ocean. In 2017, Putin personally, and with great fanfare launched the project “Yamal LNG”. Last year, the terminal exported on icebreaking tankers 18 and a half million tons of LNG.
At the end of March, when the threat of coronavirus began to intensify, the Governor of the region Dmitry Artyukhov said that working on site energy companies should leave the work crews on the ground and before the summer not to change. But many ignored his warning. “Nobody took it seriously, told me Stanislav Gurbin, working as an editor of an independent news portal “Analpro", which covers the events in the region. — On the Yamal Peninsula all know that the Governor has appointed to this post in order to he strongly promoted oil and gas companies, and not interfere with them.”
Moreover, added Gurbin, such a large-scale project “Yamal LNG” implements dozens of contractors and subcontractors. The largest companies like Gazprom or NOVATEK can afford for a while to stop. But for smaller players the canceled flight in advance chartered aircraft or helicopter can become a financial disaster.
At the end of March at the airport of Sabetta watch arrived several hundred workers. And the chaos began. Someone put on mandatory quarantine, and then released, someone immediately sent to work. “It started there,” said I one working with the “Yamal LNG”. Two weeks later, in mid-April, a few workers appeared fever and other General symptoms Сovid-19. As in Belokamenka, the authorities in the Yamal Peninsula almost didn’t say anything, even when the first patients with suspected coronavirus was sent to the closest town to the hospital.
As of Tuesday more than 130 working tests Сovid-19 gave a positive result. The Governor of the region began to announce new infections in General, not pointing to specific oil and gas fields. “Why?— asks the editor Gurbin. — What heand afraid?” He answered his own question: “our officials have a habit of hiding bad news, not to call a spade a spade”.
All APR tests Сovid-19 workplaces do very little. Talk to me the employee told me that the doctors had measured the person’s temperature only if he directly complained to them of feeling unwell. Disinfectant for hands, it was only in the rest rooms.
“In General, in fact there were no useful and competent measures” to slow the spread of the virus, said the officer. Some workers called for a regional hotline established by the office of the Governor at the time of the epidemic, and complained about the conditions of work and life. But no response to their complaints they had received.
“the Attitude was beastly,” said this person.
Some workers Covid-19 was taken to the hospital nearest regional centers of Novy Urengoy and Salekhard. (On Monday, the Governor spoke about the outbreak on the “Yamal LNG”. “The situation there is generally stable. We do not see a sharp increase in the number of seriously ill patients”, — he said.) Many workers who were considered healthy were evacuated and placed on a two-week quarantine in other cities of Russia. Nevertheless, there is reason to worry that the coronavirus will spread in the opposite direction.
He first came to the Arctic with the “mainland” as they call the main part of Russia, local residents and workers in the far North, and now back to him through the Arctic foci of infection and infect the population. In late April, the virus was discovered nearly two dozen workers from “Yamal LNG”, which returned home in the Russian Republic Buryatia, located near the border with China. Last week at the last moment canceled the evacuation flight from Belokamenka in Yekaterinburg, located three thousand miles away in the Ural mountains. This plane was supposed to take out presumably healthy workers, but the tests have several frustrated passengers were positive.
In Belokamenka number of hostels, converted to accommodate patients Сovid-19 April increased from one to five. There is a total of 18. This told me the work previously sigchi with the coronavirus. He has a suspicion that he was infected at work, and then infected with five roommates in a hostel.
“It is inevitable,’ he said to me. — We work together, live together, eat together in one dining room. One was ill — ill and all the rest of the chain”. The situation there evolved randomly, and the workers often had almost no information. “People are at a loss”, — said one of them.
For example, it is unclear whether they treat patients in the field hospital, which with the pump shown on the exp��tively television. I spoke with dozens of workers from Belokamenka, and none of them were known to this hospital someone took. They don’t even know exactly where he is.
“I think this hospital became the regional administration a convenient way to draw a beautiful picture for the Federal government, to show Putin as they are actively working on it,” said Violetta Grudina, head of the Murmansk headquarters of the leading opposition politician of Russia of Alexei Navalny.
Since the coronavirus in the far North continues to spread, the operating companies in oil and gas fields and regional administrations need to take action and to act more in concert. A relative of one of the sick on the “Yamal LNG” a worker told me that his boss has promised in the coming days to start testing on Сovid-19, and that the local hospital receives new equipment, including artificial lung ventilation. Monday checked out of almost 2 000 workers. “At least, something started to do,’ said the relative. — And before that they were just lying there, forgotten by all”.
After Belokamenka drew attention to the press, and the workers began to write about what is happening in social networks, there came the Commission from the Federal Supervisory body “Rospotrebnadzor”, which he inspected the construction site. Shortly thereafter, employees were given masks and gloves. (But as one worker, it was just a show, because two days later, “no one owes nothing gave out”.)
I heard very conflicting reports about testing. Someone said that you had tested almost all, and other people told me that is considered healthy and waiting for tests people live in hostels together with those who have developed symptoms Сovid-19. One person told me that the boundary between “green” and “red” zones, where healthy people separated from sick, ceased to exist a few days ago and “remains only on paper”. “Now all mixed up,” said this worker.
On Tuesday I saw the list of those who test during the next round of testing in Belokamenka gave a positive result. 1 145 man of four or five thousand workers at the construction site. And that’s not including those whose initial test coronavirus gave a few weeks ago with a negative result. These people will check again in the coming days, and we can assume that cases of infection will be much more. “Everything is done wrong. They’re just not keeping up with these numbers”, said one worker.
The economic burden faced by thousands of workers located in such places as Belokamenka and Sabetta, seems to have bol��e painful due to the fact that the Kremlin does not take centralized action. By the end of the year in Russia, most likely, moved into recession and unemployment will rise to 15%. However, Putin and his Ministers do not offers the public an ambitious program of economic aid. His spokesman said the Kremlin will not give in to “populist sentiment,” and must exercise utmost thrift in the use of nearly 600 billion dollars in financial reserves.
The wife of one worker from Belokamenka told me: “Nobody tells us that we can stop the repayment of debts and payment of utilities for the apartment. So we have to get money somewhere”. Another worker from Belokamenka, who regularly goes to work in his shift, said: “People have to work — even at the expense of their own health.” Many just want to go home, but the process has stalled because first you have to check thousands of workers who continue to toil and to identify how to safely deliver them to their places of permanent residence. One disgruntled worker said: “I don’t want to go on this viral garbage.”
