"Expand access to vaccinations": in Moscow, new groups of citizens allowed to get vaccinated against coronavirus

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that new groups of citizens will soon be allowed to get vaccinated against coronavirus in the capital.

As the mayor said in his blog, from January 4, an entry for vaccination will open for employees of the financial sector, as well as government bodies and budgetary institutions.

“In order to expand the access of Muscovites to vaccination against COVID-19, from Monday, January 4, we are opening a vaccination record for employees of the banking and financial sector, as well as government and budgetary institutions of the federal, regional and municipal levels,” Sobyanin wrote.

The mayor of the city said that vaccination points are open every day, seven days a week.

Note that on January 1, Sobyanin spoke about the progress of vaccination in Moscow.

According to him, 100 thousand people have already signed up for this procedure in the city, half of whom were vaccinated.

Later, the head of the Russian Ministry of Health, Mikhail Murashko, said that more than 800 thousand people had received the vaccine against COVID-19 in the country.

According to him, the process is very active, more than 1.5 million doses of the drug have already been received in the regions.

Against this background, Rospotrebnadzor reported that the issue of a possible lifting of restrictions for those vaccinated against coronavirus ("for free movement in public places") requires consideration, taking into account data on how long the immune response lasts after vaccination.

New incidence data

Over the past day, 24,150 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Russia (in the two days preceding this, the diagnosis was confirmed in 26,301 and 27,039 people).

Since the beginning of observations in the Russian Federation, there have been 3,236,787 cases.

Over the entire period, 2,618,882 people recovered, including 19,847 in the last day.

58,506 people have died from complications caused by COVID-19 and related diseases.

During the day, the number of deaths increased by 504.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 91.6 million laboratory tests have been carried out for a new type of coronavirus infection, more than 656 thousand people remain under medical supervision.

In Moscow, 3851 cases of coronavirus were detected per day, in St. Petersburg - 3738, in the Moscow region - 1539. More than 400 new episodes were also noted in the Nizhny Novgorod (483) and Sverdlovsk (404) regions.

The day before, the administration of St. Petersburg announced a gradual decrease in the number of hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19.

“Help is provided to St. Petersburg residents with coronavirus in 16 city and seven federal hospitals, in which 12,328 beds are deployed.

The number of available beds for patients with COVID-19 and pneumonia has exceeded 24% and is 3030, ”the statement said.

Commenting on the latest data, the infectious disease specialist Yevgeny Timakov expressed the opinion that the decrease in a number of statistical indicators is due to the fact that on holidays people go to doctors less and fewer tests for COVID-19 are performed.

"The decline is only due to the fact that on weekends people turn to doctors less, commercial diagnostic laboratories do not work, so there are noticeably fewer tests," RIA Novosti quotes Timakov.

The doctor believes that the peak incidence in Russia has not yet been passed.

Moreover, Timakov believes that an increase in the incidence of COVID-19 should be expected in the near future.

"Now there will be an increase in the incidence after the first five days of the holidays in a week, as people will be in contact," he said, suggesting that in Moscow the epidemiological situation will stabilize by the end of January, and in Russia - by the end of February.

Earlier, the World Health Organization noted the work of Russian doctors in the fight against the pandemic.

In a joint article by the WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, and the organization's representative in Russia, Melita Vujnovich, it is said that the organization has witnessed "the heroic dedication, professionalism and dedication of all healthcare workers in the fight against COVID-19" in Russia.

“From the first days of the pandemic, they worked on the front lines and risked their health and lives every minute,” the article says.

The authors of the material added that the fulfillment of their professional duty by Russian doctors "is an excellent example for future generations."