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Western 'intelligence'

"As far as I know, a vaccine against the coronavirus infection has been registered this morning (in Russia) for the first time in the world," the President told members of the government. "I thank everyone who worked on the vaccine - it's a very important moment for the whole world."

Putin insisted that vaccination in Russia should only be carried out on a voluntary basis, with nobody forced to accept immunization. He also revealed that one of his daughters has already been vaccinated.

"I know that it works rather effectively, forms a stable immunity, and, I repeat, it passed all the necessary inspections," the president added. [...]

Putin asked Health Minister Mikhail Murashko to provide more detailed information about the plans for immunization. He said it is hoped that the Russian vaccine will go into general circulation by January, but in the meantime medical workers and teachers will be given priority.

"We will begin the stage-by-stage civilian use of the vaccine. First and foremost, we would like to offer vaccination to those who come into contact with infected persons at work. These are medical workers. And also those who are responsible for children's health - teachers," the minister said.

Last week, the health minister stated that initial clinical trials of the vaccine developed by the Gamelei Research Center in Moscow had been completed.

However, Vadim Tarasov, a top scientist at Moscow's Sechenov University, where the trials took place said [...] [t]he technology behind the Russian vaccine is based upon adenovirus, the common cold. [T]he vaccine proteins replicate those of Covid-19 and trigger "an immune response similar to that caused by the coronavirus itself," Tarasov revealed. [...]

Putin said that his daughter had a slight temperature after taking part in trials, but that it quickly went away. "One of my daughters got the vaccine. In this sense, she took part in the experiment. After the first vaccination, she had a temperature of 38, the next day, 37 and that was all."

Top US health officials insist they're holding out for a "safe and effective" Covid-19 vaccine, hinting that Russia's shot is anything but - or even that it's a plot to 'goad the US into forcing early action on our vaccines.' [...]

The irony of US health officials criticizing the speed of Russia's vaccine development appeared lost on the pair. The Trump administration's own vaccine development program, called Operation Warp Speed, has been criticized even by the country's most fervent vaccine boosters for its "unsafe" timeline, which has contracted from an ambitious 18-month projected schedule to "maybe before the election."

The US and UK have both ordered millions of doses of a barely-tested, unproven vaccine developed by Oxford University in partnership with AstraZeneca, with HHS officials stating they hope to receive the first doses as early as October. While the shot has so far proven incapable of protecting monkeys from the virus, hope springs eternal. Another vaccine candidate, from newcomer Moderna, has triggered serious side effects in a large portion of test subjects but has nevertheless been hyped as a potential savior. The FDA hopes to approve a vaccine by December.

Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine against Covid-19, has already become subject to coordinated information attacks from nations that have political differences with Moscow.

That's according to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) which bankrolled the research. Kirill Dmitriev claims that, whether inspired by commercial concerns or just malice, the politicized approach of a number of Western countries ultimately jeopardizes the health and safety of their own citizens.

In the development and trials of the vaccine, Russia used a proven platform that had been tested on thousands of people over the past six years, the RDIF chief stressed, during an online conference on Tuesday.

"Coordinated and carefully prepared information attacks on the Russian vaccine are trying to discredit and hide the correctness of the Russian approach to drug development," Dmitriev said. "A politicized approach to the Russian vaccine on the part of a number of Western countries endangers the lives of their citizens."

"Meanwhile, a number of countries are trying to prove, in the case of 30,000 to 40,000 patients, the safety of fundamentally new approaches towards creation of vaccines, which, in fact, need to be tested for several years," Dmitriev explained on Tuesday. "The fact is that none of these vaccines created with the use of new solutions has been registered anywhere in the world."

"They have not studied the long-term effects on the human body, including fertility," he added. "Thinking that such approaches are safe in the long term without carefully studying them, in particular their long-term consequences, is a dangerous illusion." [...]

However, Vadim Tarasov, a top scientist at Moscow's Sechenov University, where the trials took place, said the country had a head start as it has spent the past 20 years developing skills in this field and trying to understand how viruses transmit.