With these words, he spoke at a meeting of the Council for Culture and Arts, where the opinion was also expressed that the optimization of health care led to a lack of beds during the pandemic.

“Keeping infectious beds when there is no pandemic is simply pointless,” Putin replied.

Russia has demonstrated its ability to mobilize the necessary resources “like no other, perhaps, a state in the world,” he said.

“No one could mobilize the required number of beds so effectively and quickly, and not only for people who suffer from severe covid disease, but also for patients with mild and moderate severity,” the TASS president quotes.

Earlier, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that the country's health system is currently operating at full capacity due to the situation with the coronavirus.