Press Release, 28.04.2020

Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and head of the party’s faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, sent an appeal to Oleg Ergashev, Vice Governor of St.Petersburg. Vishnevsky asked Ergashev to take measures to prompt and daily publication of clear and precise statistics on hospitals treating patients with coronavirus, the number of patients and those who have recovered.

In addition, Boris Vishnevsky calls on the government of St.Petersburg to guarantee to all medical workers who report (including publicly) about the problems that they see and that they will not be punished for this, and that the corresponding hospital directors will not be punished for it. Vishnevsky also proposes to take measures to prevent the attempts to pretend (especially in the cases when doctors die) that some of them were not infected when communicating with patients: infected doctors (or their families) should not collect the evidence of their infection, overcoming bureaucratic obstacles in order to receive the required payments from the city budget.

“Analysing the situation, I see that increasingly more questions are arising. And many of them are related to the transparency and accessibility of information on the situation, which I consider to be one of the factors of the consolidation of society and victory over the pandemic. The more there is objective information, the less there is gossip, rumours, anxiety and even panic among the city dwellers. I am certain that you will agree with me on this,” the deputy’s appeal runs.

Earlier, Boris Vishnevsky called on the St.Petersburg government to provide financial assistance and other assistance to St. Petersburg residents affected by the quarantine; the deputy also sent a number of concrete proposals to the Governor that would make life easier for St.Petersburg residents during the quarantine caused by COVID-19. In addition, the head of the Yabloko faction requested information from the city officials about the situation with personal protection equipment in the city, and also proposed to grant a rent waiver to entrepreneurs and NGOs renting premises from St. Petersburg until the end of the quarantine period.

Vishnevsky also believes that it is necessary to involve the police in provision of social assistance to elderly people and asked the Governor to give a clear definition of the term “self-isolation”. He also demanded that St. Petersburg not be turned into a “digital prison”, and that the discussion of the city government’s plans to combat the epidemic be fully open. The Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg adopted his deputy request to Governor Beglov asking the latter to explain the reasons for the lack of personal protective equipment in the city hospitals. The deputy also proposed deferring or canceling payments for utilities for St.Petersburg residents who were left without work due to restrictive measures during the epidemic. Vishnevsky also organised fund raising for buying personal protective equipment for St. Petersburg doctors.