LONDON, may 16. /TASS/ — the British newspaper Financial Times (FT) published on Friday evening on its website a letter from the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin, responding to previously published an article about deaths from diseases caused by coronavirus (COVID-19), in Russia. In the material FT was alleged that the Russian official statistics, this figure allegedly deliberately understated.
“Forced to Express their disagreement with the way the newspaper describes the efforts of Russia in the fight against the pandemic coronavirus. Of the material published on the pages of the publication, it follows that Russia is manipulating data on the situation in the country and spreading disinformation abroad, the government claims to act ineffectively and doctors are not adequately protected, the Ambassador noted in his letter. — A description of the situation is untrue and requires refutation. Even the most pessimistic estimates, Russia’s record on the effectiveness of the health system and mortality rates are among the best among all major countries.”
Kelin drew attention to the inaccuracies contained in the published 11 may on the website of the newspaper the material about the situation with the spread of the novel coronavirus in Russia.
As noted by kälin, the level of mortality in Russia “in 7.6 times less than the average in the world.”
“I Believe that your readers would be much more useful if your journalists tried to analyze the successful measures applied in Russia to achieve such a result, and were not looking for statistical inaccuracies. Otherwise, such items as material from 11 may this year, will be regarded in Russia as attempts to spread fake news and sowing discord in Russian society, — says the letter. — Would suggest the Financial Times to join the efforts of the international community headed by the UN Secretary-General antónio Guterres to combat misinformation about the pandemic coronavirus”.
Kaelin called not tenable the assumption of the publication that the mortality rate in Russia does not correspond to the global ratio of morbidity and mortality.
He also stressed that the Ministry of health of the Russian Federation has repeatedly explained the current policy in the field of calculation of mortality data in the country. “Even in cases when the patient is diagnosed with novel coronavirus infection, the original cause of death may be other diseases,” reads the letter.
Earlier the Financial Times in his article made a claim that the true number of dead from disease caused by a coronavirus, a new type, supposedly exceeds the data contained in official statistics, n�� 70%. In their calculations, the British newspaper relied on the comparison of mortality rates in April in Moscow, and St. Petersburg in 2020 and on average over the past five years.
the Outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus, the disease was recorded in the end of 2019 in Central China and later spread to most countries. March 11, the world health organization recognized it as an pandemic. According to the latest data, the world has infected more than 4.5 million people, recorded more than 300 thousand deaths.
