As virus cases rise, so do pleas for Russians to get vaccine

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia (AP) — As she stood in the courtyard of the morgue holding the body of her grandmother who died of COVID-19, Ramilya Shigalturina had a message for anyone still resisting vaccinations.

“I'm begging all Russians: Please get vaccinated, because it's really dreadful and dangerous,” said the resident of Nizhny Novgorod, the country's fifth-largest city.

Shigalturina said her 83-year-old grandmother “died right away after catching it. She wasn't vaccinated.”

When Russia last year became the first country to launch a coronavirus vaccine, called Sputnik V, it was hailed as a matter of national pride and a sign of its scientific know-how. But since the free immunization program began in December 2020, only about a third of the country's 146 million people have gotten fully vaccinated.

The low vaccine acceptance is of increasing concern as Russia suffers a sharp rise in cases, setting records for infections and deaths nearly every day this month. On Thursday, the national coronavirus task force reported 1,036 deaths and more than 36,000 new infections over the past 24 hours.

“I can't understand what's going on,” President Vladimir Putin said, a rare admission of bewilderment from the steely leader. “We have a reliable and efficient vaccine. The vaccine really reduces the risks of illness, grave complications and death.”

At Nizhny Novgorod's Infectious Hospital No. 23, where the seriously ill patients lie in wards with little space between their beds, Dr. Natalia Soloshenko is battered by the onslaught.

“I can tell you that out of every 50 admitted, only one or two of them are vaccinated," the chief doctor told The Associated Press. “The whole ICU is full of highly critical patients; all of those patients are unvaccinated.”

“To be honest, we're not even...