Over the past day, 24,217 new cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Russia, of which the largest number was registered in Moscow (5142), St. Petersburg (3341) and the Moscow region (1097).

During this time, 23 055 people were cured of the disease in the country, 445 patients died.

According to the operational headquarters for combating the spread of COVID-19, among the new cases, 11% of citizens did not have clinical manifestations of the disease.

The total number of cases of coronavirus detected in the country reached 3,308,601, 2,685,723 patients have recovered over the entire time, 59,951 people have died.

The press service of Rospotrebnadzor clarified that the agencies of the department and medical organizations have already conducted more than 92.3 million laboratory tests for the presence of COVID-19.

"At all checkpoints across the state border of the Russian Federation, Rospotrebnadzor carries out enhanced double control of persons arriving from disadvantaged regions using stationary and portable thermal imaging equipment," the press service of the department recalled.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reported that a new type of SARS-CoV-2, previously discovered in the UK, has been identified in 40 more countries around the world.

In addition, the 501Y.V2 variant of the coronavirus, which was first registered in South Africa, has been confirmed in six other countries.

The WHO noted that more than 4 million new cases of COVID-19 infection are recorded in the world for the third week in a row, and the number of deaths during this time increased by 3% to 76 thousand.Thus, since the beginning of the pandemic, the total number of registered cases has exceeded 83 million. there have been more than 1.8 million deaths worldwide, the organization said.

Against this background, the German authorities announced a decision to extend the restrictive measures in the country until January 31.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized the need to further reduce human contacts in order to stop the spread of infection.

So, in the regions of the country most affected by the coronavirus, it will be prohibited to move away from the place of residence without a valid reason for a distance exceeding 15 km.

Shops and restaurants will also be closed until the end of January.

In addition, by the end of the month, schoolchildren will study remotely.

In a conversation with reporters, Merkel called the new restrictions tough, but justified.

Earlier, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also announced the introduction of a national quarantine in the country amid the spread of a new type of coronavirus and the threat of overcrowding hospitals in the kingdom.

WHO Director General Tedros Adanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a briefing in Geneva the day before, recalled that more than 30 countries of the world have already begun large-scale vaccination of the population, and stressed that first of all, the vaccination should be given to medical workers and people with poor health.

"Vaccination of health care workers and those at high risk of becoming seriously ill is the fastest way to stabilize health systems," TASS quoted him as saying.

We will remind, on December 27, the deputy director of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, Alexander Gorelov, reported that the "British" strain of coronavirus infection was not detected in Russia.

The specialist stressed that even if it enters the country, nothing terrible will happen.

  • Vaccine against COVID-19 "Sputnik V" ("Gam-COVID-Vac")

  • RIA News

  • © Pavel Bednyakov

“We can say with confidence that at the moment the English mutation is absent in our country, but if it appears, then it does not carry anything global and terrible,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

As the head of the department Anna Popova emphasized, Russian vaccines against coronavirus infection are certainly effective against new COVID-19 mutations detected in the world, and the test systems produced by Rospotrebnadzor "see coronavirus in any of its variants."

“We looked at the designs of vaccines that are in Russia today, and we absolutely saw that the effectiveness of vaccines is unconditional and cannot in any way be linked to the substitutions that we see,” Popova said.

Head of the Center.

Gamalei, who developed the first Russian vaccine against COVID-19 Sputnik V, Alexander Gintsburg also noted that point mutations of SARS-CoV-2 do not affect the effectiveness of the drug.

The specialist said that if mutations of the virus continue to accumulate, this will be a reason for additional experiments.