The spread of the COVID-19 infection in Russia’s Baltic macro-region: internal differences

Abstract

This article explores the spread of the Covid-19 infection in Russia’s Baltic macro-region. The monthly excess mortality rate in the Baltic region is analysed along with regional and municipal Covid-19 response acts to identify regional features affecting the spread of the disease. The spatial characteristics of Russia’s Baltic regions, germane to the propagation of Covid-19, were distinguished by examining selected social and economic statistical indicators. Based on the space of places/space of flows dichotomy, Russia’s Baltic regions can be divided into three spaces: 1) St. Petersburg, the Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions (dominated by spaces of flows; highly permeable space); 2) the Republic of Karelia and the Murmansk region (the key factors are rotational employment and the introduction of the virus from without); 3) the Novgorod and Pskov regions (lowly permeable spaces of places; the central role of local foci of the disease). The principal risk factor for the space of flows is the rapid spread of Covid-19 along transport arteries, whilst, within the space of places, the coronavirus spreads through spatial diffusion from isolated foci along short radii. In the former case, local authorities counteracted spatial diffusion by restricting movement in the local labour market; in the latter, by limiting travel between the centre and the periphery. The traditional ideas about positive (openness, centrality) and negative (closedness, peripherality) characteristics of space are reversed in the context of the pandemic: periphery gains the benefit of natural protection from the pandemic, whilst centres become acutely vulnerable.