In Moscow, on Tuesday, June 16, the second phase of the exit from the restrictive measures introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic begins. 

Summer verandas of cafes and restaurants, museums, exhibitions, a zoo resume work in the city. Also, dentistry is beginning to provide planned assistance, libraries and rental services are opening.

The mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin announced the decision to proceed to a new stage the day before, noting that a decrease in the incidence rate continues to be recorded in the city.

At the same time, according to the recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor, the newly opened institutions must comply with a number of rules: constant ventilation of the premises (if possible), daily wet cleaning, monitoring the health of employees, restricting communication between departments and mask mode.

As Alexander Gorelov, deputy director of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor for research on the First Channel, said on the eve of the day, the current level of COVID-19 circulation among the population has decreased by 20 times in Moscow compared with mid-March.

President Vladimir Putin during a meeting on the implementation of measures taken to support the economy and the social sphere compared the actions of the Russian authorities in countering the spread of coronavirus infection with the situation observed during the Great Patriotic War.

“During the war, for a few weeks almost all industrial enterprises were taken out of the European part and immediately started production in the field and tanks were already delivered to the front. Therefore, under our conditions, we simply must do this and work even better, ”the head of state emphasized.

It is worth noting that Russian regions continue to take measures to combat coronavirus, based on the situation with the disease, and many of them are still forced to maintain restrictions.

So, as of June 16, 13 cities canceled the festive processions scheduled for June 24 in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. This decision was made due to the difficult sanitary and epidemiological situation.

Events will not be held in Pskov, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Orel, Kursk, Belgorod, Perm, Penza, Saransk, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Yakutsk. 

The day before, 8,246 new cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Russia, while 4489 people were cured, 143 patients died.

Thus, the total number of COVID-19 cases registered in the country reached 537,210, for all the time 284,539 people recovered, 7091 died.

Also on russian.rt.com RT map: distribution of COVID-19 cases by regions of Russia

Vaccine work

In summer, preclinical trials of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19 should be completed. This was announced on the air of the TV channel "St. Petersburg" by the general director of the biotechnological company "Biocad" Dmitry Morozov.

“I hope that by mid-summer - early August we will finish the preclinical stage of vaccine development and proceed to the second stage - testing on volunteers,” he said.

At the same time, further developments in this direction can go both according to the optimistic and pessimistic scenario.

“By the end of autumn - the beginning of winter, some production facilities must be deployed in order to start producing this vaccine,” Morozov added.

In addition, the CEO of Biocad expressed the view that coronavirus undergoes a normal evolutionary process, adaptation.

“The virus is not interested in killing its master. If we accept the theory that he recently came to us from the wild, then in fact he adapted to life in the human body. In fact, on the contrary, these mutations should be aimed at ensuring that it creates less bad consequences for the host and takes root more in it and spreads further, ”he explained.

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At the same time, the acting director of the A.A. Smorodintseva Dmitry Lioznov said that in late June - early July, it is planned to launch studies of another vaccine. According to him, healthy volunteers who had not had COVID-19 before were invited.

In addition, scientists from St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University (LETI) have developed a system for the rapid diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus infection with peptides. The cost of such tests will be no more than 500 rubles apiece.

“The test system in the form of a biochip, that is, the plates to be sewn on, is attached to the peptides that we developed. And which, if we drop a sample from the throat, from the nose, then the virus will stick there, join. It is this virus. We will see the answer very quickly, ”said Tatyana Zimina, a leading researcher at LETI, on the air of the St. Petersburg television channel.

Ministry of Defense vaccine

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the final stage of preparation for clinical trials of the vaccine from COVID-19, jointly developed by specialists from the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Honorary Academician N.F. National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Gamalei.

According to the agency, in the coming days the two-week isolation of the first group of volunteers will be completed, after which they will be vaccinated.

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“According to the results of vaccination of the first group, the remaining volunteers will be vaccinated sequentially with vaccine components to evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine and study the process of generating a humoral immune response (antibodies),” the report said.

As Colonel of the Medical Service Sergey Borisevich, head of the 48th Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, said earlier, clinical trials of the drug should be completed by the end of July.