You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
In Pandemic’s Grip, Russia Sees Spike in Age-Old Bane: DrinkingThe widespread, false belief that alcohol will protect drinkers from the coronavirus is helping drive an increase in liquor sales and domestic violence.
The alcohol department of a supermarket in Moscow.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesPublished April 14, 2020Updated April 30, 2020
MOSCOW — Dr. Azat Asadullin, chief doctor at a clinic in south-central Russia, is scrambling to prepare for an influx of patients. He is ready to deploy spare beds and stocking up on medication and disinfectants.
The affliction Dr. Asadullin is girding for is alcoholism.
Across the world, the coronavirus pandemic has sparked fears of increased alcohol abuse, as people locked in and anxious turn to drink. In Russia, two weeks into a nationwide partial lockdown, those fears are becoming reality as evidence mounts that a spike in alcohol sales is fueling a rise in domestic violence.
“The patients are dour, irritable and aggressive,” Dr. Asadullin said, describing the people he is treating during the pandemic. “Over New Year’s they’re more compliant and happy.”
Reducing the country’s passion for inebriants has been one of the government’s main public health goals under President Vladimir V. Putin, and the most recent official statistics showed Russians consuming about one-third less alcohol per year than they did in 2003.
But dayslong drinking binges are still a habit for some people, especially during holidays. In late March, when Mr. Putin obliged with a nationwide paid week off to combat the spread of the coronavirus, the habit kicked in.
Sales of vodka in Russia shot up 65 percent in the last week of March, compared with a month earlier, according to the market research firm GfK. Domestic violence activists registered a spurt in reported incidents, particularly by intoxicated men.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.3