18:12 into the audio: “I would argue that where we can most directly see the impact of some of this Russian vaccine disinformation is actually in Russia itself.” Judy Twigg again “ Russia’s actions here have backfired and impacted their vaccine uptake at home, so that now we have a situation in Russia where supply of Sputnik V actually exceeds demand, especially in Moscow. In Moscow you can walk up to just about any clinic and get vaccinated with Sputnik V right off the bow without having to pre register, or wait in line because there are so few people who are lining up to take the vaccine”
Judy says vaccine confidence is low in Russia because of the speed of Sputnik V approval and all the accumulated vaccine disinformation the government has been pumping out all these years. “They shot themselves in the foot. At the very beginning they launched Sputnik V with such aggressive fanfare that it people inside Russia and of course many outside Russia, to distrust the product, and months later we learned that the product is in fact safe and effective but it has been very hard for it to shed that aura of questioning around it.”