MOSCOW— Vladimir Putin has registered the world’s first state-approved vaccine against the coronavirus and probably expected congratulations—at least at home—for winning the global race for a vaccine, but even Russians aren’t so sure this is a good idea.

Epidemiologists, pharmacologists, and doctors in Russia have responded to the alleged breakthrough with skepticism, and they certainly aren’t lining up to be injected first.

Russian scientists plan to start the final stage of the trials on Monday, planning to begin the mass vaccination in October. Siberian scientists in the city of Novosibirsk are offering thousands of volunteers $1,997 for giving the vaccine a try, Znak news website reports. That is a lot of money for Novosibirsk, where the average monthly wage is $519.

Many fear it is dangerous to open the vaccine to the public weeks before the third-stage trials are completed. “It seems that five months for the creation of such an important drug is too short a time,” an article in popular newspaper Kommersant noted on Friday.

The whole enterprise evokes Soviet-era scientific experimentation which included many great advances but sometimes carried …continued .
[Source: CNBC News]