On October 20, at a meeting of government members with President Vladimir Putin, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova spoke about the pace of vaccination against COVID-19. Five of the nine outliers she named are the regions of the South of Russia and the North Caucasus: Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Stavropol Territory, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Adygea.

In the country as a whole, the herd immunity rate is just over 45%, Golikova said. At the same time, in Dagestan, collective immunity was only 21%, in Kabardino-Balkaria - 28%, and in Stavropol, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Adygea - 32% each.

Golikova named Chechnya among the leading regions in terms of vaccination. On October 20, the Minister of Health of the Republic reported on the implementation of the vaccination program by 90%, which corresponds to the herd immunity indicator of 59%.

Compulsory vaccination for certain groups of the population was introduced by 79 out of 85 (including Crimea annexed by Russia) regions, Golikova said. According to other sources, after announcement of mandatory vaccination in the Stavropol Territory and Kalmykia, Ingushetia remained the last region of the country that did not take up such measures. The head of the republic, Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov, explained that there are no plans to introduce compulsory vaccinations since the epidemiological situation in Ingushetia is "stable and controlled."

On October 20, at the request of the government, President Putin declared non-working days from October 30 to November 7 inclusive due to the difficult epidemiological situation.

Earlier it was reported that the reliability of data on vaccinations in Chechnya raises doubts due to the widespread practice of "false vaccination" in the republic and the circulation of fake vaccination certificates.