In Russia over the past day, 13,233 new cases of coronavirus infection were detected.

During this time, 17,627 people recovered, 459 patients died from complications that developed against the background of COVID-19, and concomitant diseases.

The leaders in terms of daily growth are Moscow (1409), St. Petersburg (1082) and Moscow Region (643).

According to the press service of Rospotrebnadzor, over 107.3 million laboratory tests were carried out in the country to detect COVID-19, more than 618 thousand people remain under medical supervision due to suspicion of infection. 

The total number of SARS-CoV-2 cases registered in the country has reached 4,099,323, 80,979 patients have died throughout the entire period, 3,624,633 people have recovered.

According to the data of the Moscow operational headquarters for control and monitoring of the situation with coronavirus, 762 people were hospitalized in Moscow over the past 24 hours.

On the eve of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin expressed hope that due to the improvement of the situation with COVID-19 in the capital, it will soon be possible to hold festivals and other mass events in the traditional format. 

“I hope that the competitions that we have in our calendar in Moscow will take place, as well as large events will begin again on our streets, festivals, which attract many guests of the capital and the Muscovites themselves.

Theaters will be able to fully work again not only in theaters, but also at public events, squares and streets of Moscow, ”Sobyanin said at the ceremony for presenting the 2020 Moscow City Prize in the field of physical culture, sports and tourism.

We will remind, on February 4, Sobyanin noted that the main restrictions introduced in the city in order to slow the spread of coronavirus infection can be removed by May.

Prior to that, in Moscow, the requirement for employers to transfer 30% of employees to a remote mode was canceled, and restrictions on serving visitors to restaurants, bars and nightclubs from 23:00 to 06:00 were lifted. 

Earlier, Sobyanin also noted that even in the event of a new outbreak of COVID-19, it would not be critical for the capital. 

“We will survive it - and we will continue to get out of the pandemic and do our usual things, lead a normal life,” the mayor said.

At the same time, the press service of Rospotrebnadzor reported that the Russian vaccine against COVID-19 "EpiVacCorona", developed by the State Scientific Center for Virology and Biotechnology "Vector", is effective against new varieties of SARS-CoV-2.

The department emphasized that the center regularly monitors all mutations that could affect the effect of the drug. 

“Mutations characteristic of new strains of coronavirus (British, South African, Brazilian) do not affect the epitopes selected for the EpiVacCorona peptide vaccine.

The peptides that make up the vaccine are highly conservative, ”Rospotrebnadzor said.

President Vladimir Putin previously commissioned to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of Russian vaccines against new strains of SARS-CoV-2.

According to the Kremlin press service, the Cabinet of Ministers was entrusted with assessing the effectiveness of vaccines in relation to the recorded mutations of the virus, "as well as, if necessary, conduct additional research on these vaccines and amend their registration dossiers."

  • RIA News

  • © Mikhail Golenkov

The day before, Rospotrebnadzor also announced the development of the world's first test system for detecting the "British" strain of coronavirus, which "allows you to avoid false positive results when detecting mutations for samples with a very high viral load."

In turn, the interdepartmental city coordinating council for countering the spread of coronavirus reported that in St. Petersburg more than 160 thousand people have already received the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Of these, 35,287 have completed the vaccination cycle.

Over the past day, 2063 people were initially vaccinated, and 278 were vaccinated for the second time, ”the message says.

Meanwhile, The Guardian, citing the results of a study by specialists from the University of Edinburgh, reported that a new variant of the coronavirus, dubbed B1525, had been identified in the UK.

According to the publication, this variant was found by sequencing the genome of virus samples in ten countries.

According to the latest data from the World Health Organization, there are more than 108.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world.

The number of deaths of patients with coronavirus has exceeded 2.3 million.