Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered from next week (January 18) to switch from large-scale to mass vaccination of the population against coronavirus.

The head of state announced this order during a meeting with members of the government.

According to the president, all the necessary infrastructure must be prepared by this time.

“I ask you to start mass vaccination of the entire population from next week and build an appropriate schedule of work in the same way as we do with other diseases, for example, the flu,” Putin said.

The President explained that the increase in the pace of the vaccination campaign became possible due to the fact that the Russian industry not only fulfilled "all the promised standards and volumes, but also exceeded the planned volumes of vaccine production."

In turn, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova confirmed that the relevant departments are ready from Monday, January 18, to switch to wider vaccination of the population.

“By the end of January, 2.1 million doses of the vaccine will go into civil circulation, that is, for use by the population.

And we will seriously need to scale up the vaccination campaign, ”she said.

The Deputy Prime Minister also said that during the New Year holidays, vaccination against COVID-19 went on as planned, and this process continues.

“For three days, starting from January 11 to 14, about 600 thousand more doses of vaccine will be delivered to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

And this work to increase production and deliveries to the regions will continue, ”Golikova said.

  • Tatiana Golikova

  • © RIA Novosti / Alexander Astafiev

During a meeting with members of the government, Vladimir Putin called the Russian Sputnik V vaccine "the best in the world."

According to him, this is shown by the practice of using the drug.

He added that no other vaccine "demonstrates this level of protection and this degree of safety."

“This is the undoubted success of our specialists, our scientists,” Putin said, instructing him to thoroughly check how the drug will act in the face of multiple strains of coronavirus.

“I know the opinion of experts, they believe that our vaccine will work and work effectively, despite all this multiplicity of strains, but deep research is still needed,” the president said, instructing Golikova to oversee this issue.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that a study of a new strain of coronavirus carried out by the Vector Research Center has shown the effectiveness of the drug against this mutation.

“We are additionally conducting scientific research to be absolutely sure, 200%, if I may say so, that this is really so, and now we have a reason to assert this,” she added.

Large-scale vaccination against coronavirus has been carried out in Russia since December 2020.

More than 1 million citizens of the Russian Federation have already been vaccinated, and more than 1.5 million people have received the drug.

The press service of the Russian Direct Investment Fund reported that applications for the purchase of over 1.2 billion doses of the Sputnik V vaccine were received from dozens of countries.

The drug for foreign markets will be mainly produced abroad.

We add that on January 8, the Ministry of Health issued a permit to conduct a clinical study of the Sputnik Light vaccine, a one-component version of Sputnik V, which some countries can use as an effective interim measure.

  • Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine

  • © REUTERS / Sergey Pivovarov

During his speech, the Russian President also noted a "slight decrease" in the rate of spread of COVID-19 in the country, but stressed that this should not reassure anyone.

Putin added that the Russian authorities are "with concern" watching the situation in the UK and a number of other countries, where there is an increase in the incidence.

“All this is interconnected, movement is inevitable.

And the fact that we temporarily restrict our transport communications, transport communications - aviation and others - these are all temporary measures.

But we need to understand what is happening in our country, how we can stop the emerging new threats, ”the president explained.

Since the beginning of the year, about 285 thousand new cases of COVID-19 have been detected in Russia, which is 15% lower than in the last 12 days of 2020, Tatyana Golikova said.

There is a decrease in the daily incidence rate - from 19.9 to 15.6 per 100 thousand population.

“The situation in the regions of the country is still different, but over the past two weeks, the number of regions where there has been a decrease or stabilization of the incidence rate is 83. In two regions, growth continues so far,” the Deputy Prime Minister explained.

On the eve of the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova reported that the intensity of the epidemic process in 61 regions is in the stage of stabilization, and in 22 constituent entities of the Russian Federation - in the stage of decline, growth is observed only in two regions.

Over the past day, 22,850 new cases of coronavirus infection have been detected in Russia, 28,658 people have recovered, 566 patients have died.

The total number of registered cases of COVID-19 in the country since the beginning of the epidemic has reached 3,471,053. For the entire time, 2,854,088 patients (82.22%) have recovered.

63,370 people (1.83%) died from complications that developed against the background of coronavirus infection and concomitant diseases.