Vaccine hesitancy at least partly reflects one of my core themes – the paradox of Russians’ view of the state: on the one hand, many want a socially interventionist state that protects them from harm (and protects them from the more coercive parts of the state itself!). On the other, they know its limitations, and moreover, they know too well the potential dangers of interacting with what is a fickle and rather callous bureaucratic machine (perhaps no more so than many Western states, if we’re honest).